Meet me in the middle

I began my committed partner-life on the left. Before then, I don’t have much clarity as to whether I identified as a left or right guy, of even if I cared, because before the commitment one makes to partnership, I didn’t know that one day these polarities would define me.

For 27 years, I slept on the left hand side of the bed and my partner, slept on the right. I don’t think I made that choice specifically or that I identified particularly as a left-of-bed sleeper. More likely, it happened as all habits do, in an unconscious state induced by the mundanity of our collective domestic lives. Or maybe he identified as a right-hand-side guy and I simply placated. I don’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter.

But our place in the world, the vantage point with which we would take up position each night,  was set in stone. Anytime we would sleep on foreign soil, there was an assumption that the sides we slept on were not a choice but more a confirmation of an essential and permanent truth. Sleeping on a strange bed didn’t mean we could suddenly become strange to our consistent identities. I would be reminded, gently, that i would always be left. There was an order, there was a sense made of ourselves as individuals and a unified one that insisted there was a place we belonged.

It is a strange claim of sovereignty  - the side of the bed that is yours. But I suppose, it delineates the individual and their very unique impressions that they make on the world. The indentation on the left of the mattress had been formed by only me. It shocks me that my mattress - such a sturdy, sprung construction - would ultimately yield to my weight upon it. That it would become relational to me. That I would claim ownership ultimately of a small place in the world that was mine and had been changed by me in minute ways every night. And every night I would dutifully settle into that groove, like it had been moulded by a great sculptor or a shoemaker who constructs a shoe that only your foot might love.

After many years of seeing the world from that vantage point, when we separated, I made the bold decision to flip my script. I liberated my view, In every way including taking up residence on the right hand side of the bed. What had I been missing for nearly 30 years. How possible is it to become a member of the opposition after so many years of loyal service?

This simple shift was significant. Each night when I would crawl into the right hand side of the bed a thrill of rebellion would course through my weary bones. How simple, yet subversive the move felt. A rebellion against convention and the oppression of being a member of a team with set positions of play. I felt wild.

But habits perhaps are what help us feel whole. Like, somehow the daily acceptance of ritual and sameness might assert that we are a continuous self - a self we can recognise. Because now, for three years, I have remained a card carrying member of the right hand ideology. I hadn’t thought to switch sides or mess with my new identity, in case this inconsistency rendered me not identifiable at all. Who’s that girl, they would ask as I walked lonely through the town square, to which people would shrug. Who was she, if indefinable by her commitment to the side of the bed?

That was until recently. It occurred to me that there was uncharted territory that had yet to be explored by anyone who had found themselves a home in my bed. So a couple of nights ago, when the moon was high, I rolled up and into it. Yes, it was like rolling up a mountain, finding my way from the groove in the right to the centre. The centre. A world away from the left or the right - its own distinct place that belonged to no one. A nothingness where I could find refuge as neither this or that.

The centre of the bed though, is hard to maintain a relationship with for long. It felt like I was sleeping on a thin buttress, high on a mountain, and any movement would mean descent into the left or right valley. Also, I couldn’t reach things on either side of the bed.

But I visit sometimes. When I need to remind myself that a girl can be whatever she wants to be. Unencumbered by the rules, man. A queen in my queen.