Make it and They Will Come
Photography by Lily Walsh
A bed is more than just a bed. You can sleep there. You can read there. You can nibble on snacks and complete homework. You can binge watch the newest series on Netflix. But at our age, when dorm rooms and a hallway make up our entire living space, beds are also one of the first things someone sees when you take them home.
In what is possibly the best advice from the classic Sex and the City, Miranda changed her bedding to bring positive vibes into her living space. “I figure if I can make my bed a place I want to be, others will feel the same,” she told Carrie, slipping on ruffled peach pillow cases.
A good or bad “bed omen” can send ripples through multiple areas of your life, including self-care and interpersonal relationships. An unmade bed with white sheets and one sad hanging poster is not ideal for anyone. In fact, it can actually show signs of a bigger problem.
Bedrooms are examples of who we are. That’s why we pick out the perfect sheets and accessories to line our walls before freshman orientation even begins. If your bed is chaotic and undesirable (like many of ours are), how are you going to get anyone else to crawl on in?
Organizational expert and Netflix phenomena Marie Kondo encourages in her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, that “from the moment you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life.” Each small step in altering your living space will hopefully symmetrically encourage change in your intimate relationships.
To change your life, you need to make a change. Take action with these tips.
Tip #1: Buy a new pair of sheets.
All white bedding is not going to cut it. Aside from being easy to get dirty, they often look cheap and hotel-like. You want to feel at home and comfortable in your new space. If you haven’t bought new bedding in a year, try to find a pair that embodies the best parts of yourself. Invest in yourself by making sure it’s comfortable.
Tip #2: Get some pillows—but not too many.
You want to decorate your space so that it seems inviting, but sometimes less is more. Too many pillows on your bed can make it feel crowded or cluttered. It might seem fluffy to you, but can appear as dysfunctional to others. Plus, who wants to dump a mound of pillows on the ground each time you go to bed? Findings presented at the 2015 SLEEP conference in Seattle showed those with less clutter had a better night’s sleep. Those with clutter also saw a similar trend between sleep disorders, depression, and stress.
Tip #3: Please don’t eat in it.
I know. It’s hard. Sometimes there’s really no other place in your dorm to eat. But no one wants to roll around in chips and crumbs when at a potential partner’s place. Keep that new bedding nice and disassociate your bed with tedious tasks like eating, homework, and stress. This will keep your bed away from toxic subconscious associations, reinstate it as a corner for comfort and self-love, and create a better overall “bed omen.”
Tip #4: Try to keep everything looking aesthetically pleasing.
Budgets might be tight. It’s college. Everyone has different economic situations. But Susan Shehata, a wellness educator and creative and social entrepreneur, says she finds that those with unfinished bedroom spaces usually have problems with commitment. They feel that decisions made within their space have finite repercussions and therefore just don’t make decisions. So putting a priority on your bedtime routine and how your sleep space looks is definitely important. When the bedroom becomes merely about function, you’re not giving enough attention to intimacy.
Just like there are supposed bases in physical intimacy, one’s “bed omen” can often become a Field of Dreams. “Make it and [they] will come.”
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This article appears in the October 2019 print issue of Your Magazine.