A place to lay my head

Yesterday morning, for the first time since college, I woke up in my own bed. My own, real, actual bed--as opposed to the mattress and boxspring combination I've been using in the interim. A bed made of wood and iron that I picked out, paid for, and eagerly anticipated throughout six weeks of backorder until it finally arrived in two boxes and even more pieces courtesy of the super who had actually received it several days earlier (but who had neglected to inform me).

"What is that?" My cousin asked, walking out of the bathroom wrapped in a navy towel and dripping water all over the floor. She was visiting for the weekend and was a little surprised to find me contemplating giant boxes when I should have been getting ready to go out.

"It's my bed," I replied. "I ordered it forever ago and it just arrived." With the help of a paring knife, I sliced into the first box to show her the gold-brushed iron scrolling of the headboard

"It's beautiful!" She agreed, but she looked doubtful. "Is your dad coming to help you put it together?"

I laughed. My dad is the least handy man I know. His version of “fixing something” involves taking the day off to oversee while Jose, the housekeeper’s husband, paints, installs or repairs whatever current project my dad has decided needs paint or installation or repair. On the rare occasions when something must be done right away, it’s usually either my mom or I who does it. It's been this way for as long as I can remember—the earliest example being that Christmas morning when an impatient seven-year-old me pulled a fresh-out-of-the-box NES away from my puzzled dad and quickly figured out which wire went where.

"No," I replied, pushing the boxes through the living room into my library. "I can do it."

The next day, my parents drove into the city to join us for lunch, after which we returned to my apartment.

"Look," I told my dad excitedly, pulling him into the library. "It's my new bed!"

I'd taken the pieces out of the box to get a better look and they now lay on the floor in a bed of Styrofoam chunks and cellophane. My dad admired the ironwork, noting the way that it matched my dining set and the accents on my dresser.

"Are you going to ask Looney to build it?" He asked me, referring to my friend Looney's upcoming visit.

"No," I said. "I'm going to do it alone." My dad sighed and made that face he sometimes makes, "O-kay, if you insist..."

"I insist," I replied with a smile.

After they left, I poured myself a glass of water and sat down on the floor to gauge the task at hand. The instructions were a bit blurry, but they looked easy enough. A screw here. A bolt there. Tighten, et voila! I got to work on the headboard, which I managed to put together. It was fairly straightforward, but took a little bit longer than I expected.

One piece complete, I, in true Alejandra fashion, decided to take a break and stretched out on the couch to watch Brokedown Palace on Oxygen. Two hours later, moved to tears by the film, I went back into the library for phase two of the bed assembly.

As I tightened and sobbed, I wondered whether or not I would be self-less enough to accept life imprisonment in a Bangkok jail so that one of my best friends could go free. The question made my stomach turn a bit so, upon completion of the footboard, I decided to distract myself with something a bit more amusing. Two episodes of Hotel Babylon later (fabulous BBC America show available On Demand), I realized that the sun had set and that I really needed to get a move-on with this bed situation. With only a modicum of difficulty, I next carried the two completed pieces into my bedroom and stripped the mattress of the layers of down and pillows I nestle into each night. I worked the mattress and box spring up onto their sides and then used my pink measuring tape to determine where the bed should be placed.

Now came the hard part, attaching the rails to the bed resulted in multiple bruises and one nasty scratch where an ill-conceived plan to balance the rail on my thigh went awry. Once I got the first rail done, I decided to make myself some dinner while watching yet another episode of Hotel Babylon (I’m telling you, it’s fantastic!).

It was another hour or so before I finished and got everything back into place, but once it was done, the feeling of accomplishment that seemed to flow over me was great. I giggled and jumped up onto my perfectly made bed, reveling in the delicious feeling of having completed it all by myself.

I called my dad and shared the news. “I just finished my bed!” I told him proudly.

He laughed, “really? Alone? Are you sure it’s...safe?”

“Shut up,” I said, laughing.

I looked around the apartment—the painted walls, the restuffed couch, the furniture that I’ve been slowly collecting and purchasing. Everything has bits of me in it. I realized recently that it was right around this time last year that I made the decision to move here. It was a difficult time for me—losing my job, leaving my apartment, saying good-bye to the people that I loved. I felt uncertain and untethered and really rather unhappy with just about everything. But there was one thing that I was sure of, and that was that coming to NY was the right decision.

It’s been one year, two cities, two jobs, and two moves later, but I know that for the first time in a VERY long time, I am exactly where I need to be.

That bed took me hours to build and it wasn’t anywhere near as easy as I thought it would be. I got knocked around a little and distracted a few times (ok, maybe more than a few times). And yes, there are still little bits of Styrofoam floating around the apartment that I have to clean up.

But I did it. And it was all worth it.