Highly Inconvenienced

I was about 14 at the time. Something within me flipped a switch where my generic wood-frame bed and gender-neutral decor suddenly wasn't good enough. I was looking into this canopy bed I really wanted. Obviously the decorators and designers did a great job in the pictures: beautifully painted bedrooms with coordinating bed sets atop a white canopy bed. Every girl's dream right? Yup, and I was sold. I think this was my own personal way of rebellion in the teenage years. (Nowadays it's quite common for parents to let their kids redesign their rooms once they hit a certain age, usually the early teens or middle school years in preparation for an older/more mature look. I grew up with practical parents who didn't replace or fix anything unless it was broken and not serving its intended purpose. I have since inherited portions of that mindset...perhaps to my husband's dismay at times.)

I looked at it for weeks and wrote down everything I wanted and even priced it out for my dad with tax. I picked out the canopy bed, the nightstand, a lamp, a dish chair, a new bed set, and a decorative pillow. It was everything I needed to turn my mundane bedroom into the perfect teenage feminine sanctuary.

Well, turns out my beloved canopy bed would not fit in my bedroom because the canopy would have run into the ceiling fan. So I had to say goodbye to the canopy. This actually cut down the budget by about $100, so I figured it was a win win still for both my dad and me. He would save some money, and I'd still get most of what I originally wanted. When we went to the store to go pick out the furniture, I was slightly disappointed at what I saw. I remember seeing the same white iron bed frame sitting in the store with a plain mattress laid on top with no beautiful bedding to adorn it. It looked so boring, almost the way my existing bed looked. Inside, I was wondering, do I really need a new bed and all this new stuff? Yes, I did (so I thought.) So my dad ordered the bed and nightstand for me from one store, and we drove around to a few other places and picked up the rest of the items on my list to redecorate my room.

On the day my new bed was delivered, my dad got a call that a signature was required for the package, otherwise they wouldn't leave it and the delivery date would have to be rescheduled. He left work and drove home in the middle of the day to sign for the delivery, and then drove the 30 minutes back to his office to finish the rest of his work day. I was at school and had no idea what happened until he told me later that evening. At the time, I knew what happened was an inconvenience to my dad, but in the years since, I've really come to understand truly how significant the inconvenience was.

This was my room frozen in time for a year when I moved overseas.
I made it as clean and organized as I could for not having the
time to seriously clean and clear out what I didn't need.

I spy the bed, the nightstand, the purple lamp, my purple dish
chair, and the decorative pillow, all parts of my "room redecorating" phase.

I really loved that bed and everything else I picked out during that teenage-life crisis. Since then, the chair has been well-loved. The bed well-used, and the lamp is still in great working condition. The bed set has since been replaced as it has understandably not withstood the test of 10 years of use and washings. I moved the lamp and dish chair with me to the apartment when I got married, and it has since followed us to our house.

My beloved bed has remained in my old room at my dad's house for the last three years. I always joked with my husband that I wanted to move it over for our future kids to sleep in. He said only if we had a girl. After we found out we were having a girl, he finally said, "Well, I guess we can move your bed over." A couple months ago, we went over to my dad's house, disassembled my old bed and nightstand, loaded it up in his little hatchback, drove it back to our house, and reassembled it here. (Seriously, we could do some major advertising for the Honda Fit. His little car is shorter than mine bumper to bumper and has hauled more large items than could ever fit in mine.)

We purchased a new box spring, mattress, and bedding set for it, and it's waiting for our little girl in about 3-4 years. In the mean time, we may spend a few (or more) nights on it ourselves since it is in the bedroom right down the hall instead of around the corner of our house from the nursery.

The friends are all hanging out together. We wanted to put it in the nursery
as a secondary bed for us to pass out on during late nights, but it wouldn't
fit. So for now, it's down the hall in the other room.

This simple piece of furniture is only in the first stages of being passed down one generation, but it already has such a huge story. We are very blessed to have the luxury of hanging onto our childhood possessions and belongings because we did not need to move overseas or travel great lengths in search of a better future. (You see all the friends on the bed? Each one has a store of where he/she came from and some small significance. There's another pod of friends on another bed...our children will have no shortage of stuffies to play with.) I don't know how my children will feel about passing down the things they will grow up with in the coming years, but I do hope to share the story of this bed as well as many more stories with them about the things they have, the people who've brought them, and how much value they truly have.

And yes, I'm prepared to be highly inconvenienced over the years by my future children. But you know what? It has some of the greatest returns.