Bedside tables are not just bedside tables. They are the holder of secrets. They are the windows to our souls. They are emphatically not for public consumption. They say so much about us. Might be time for a clear out because ours are full of things like…
Use it or lose it
Ye olde worlde condom, from days of yore in a land before time. Past its sell-by date. Wedged in the back, between the two shelves, as a fallen monument to hope over experience. Would it still work? Can they really go off? Wanna give it a go???
Shelf help
Taking up 90% of your bedside table space are the self help books you have bought in 10 years of searching for your true path. With titles like Codependent No More and The Five Love Languages. Books by Pia Mellody, Melody Beattie, Brenee Brown and the CBT exercise book which you filled out judiciously for one night and now just stare at accusingly hoping that documented thoughts will magically equal zen-like feelings. Dog-eared copies of The Rules – still not working. And The Secret – still a mystery. Bollocks.
Feel the feet and do it anyway
A corn-ucopia of desperation: cracked heel cream (‘Oy, but it hurts like tiny hot knives’), Bliss foot lotion (could be from the actual 90s) and your most recent addition – a foot mask which once would have felt like one step too far but, given the way your heels lacerate your shins on a nightly basis, is now a necessity. Also some slightly sticky night socks. Probably cashmere. Definitely ruined.
Pot luck
Balm. One with CBD, one with essential oils, another with some kind of ancient English herb. Are they for your sore elbows? Your sore teeth? Your sore soul?
Pills, pills, pills
If you shook your bedside table/self, it/you would positively rattle with pills. Firstly, there is every iteration of sleeping pill that isn’t actually a sleeping pill: over-the-counter stuff that thoughtful friends brought back from far, far away; Magnesium (powder and capsules), Melatonin (the good stuff from Hong Kong), and a blister sheet with two Xanax left that you feel too needy to take – you are hanging on to them like a security blanket, a bit like those Liberty vouchers that you have had for two years but don’t dare spend because, if you do, you’ll feel as though you’ll be left with nothing. The cupboard will be bare.
Write night
All your attempts at journaling. Moan, moan, moan, man, moan, moan, moan, man, moan. Maybe you should try to get them published?
