The Midlife

I’m mourning the slow passing of my boyfriend. This is what my real boyfriend (aka my husband) calls my dead body pillow. I’ll explain.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I could not get in a comfortable sleeping position, which is not a shock to most pregnant women. Preggos aren’t supposed to sleep on their back. I used to sleep on my stomach, which was also off limits. Truly the best doctor-recommended side is the left (because of blood flow to the fetus) and made me envious of animals who could sleep standing up …. for the idea of variety, alone.

Taking pity on having impregnated me, my husband bought me a body pillow. It didn’t take long after the Amazon delivery for me to fall in love. My boyfriend cradled me at night with a firm embrace. He was the only one I looked forward to spooning night after night. I imagined he, too, felt the same way laying against my own pillow-like body.

Once a bright white and with a bright white pillow case, my boyfriend has taken a beating over the years. He stayed in my life much longer than I had expected. He even dealt with a brief break in our relationship when I slept exclusively in my recliner with my daughter during her first year of life (and no doubt the arbiter of my subsequent sciatic pain). He’s been washed and dried and served as a muffler to at least one ear against my husband’s relentless snoring. We had the best of times.

Over the past couple of months, I noticed a change in him. As noted in the pictures above, our relationship… I mean, his body … started to unravel. He’s lost his sense of being. Literally, I wake up with a handful of cotton balls stuck to my hair or butt. My carpet is carpeted with the remnants of what used to be, even though my husband attempted to sew up his open wounds.

He’s yellowed and gotten out of shape. But my jaundiced main squeeze still remains in my bed. Until we can slumber, again, tonight. He still fills a void in my life. And while my husband still snores, with my boyfriend by my side the snoring bothers me less. I know the day will come soon, when I will have to bury him in my local dumpster, but our beautiful memories together will remain: firm, comforting, forevermore.