My last year of high school, I got tired of sleeping on a bed. I gave my bed to my sister as it was one of a pair of bunk beds and I began sleeping on the floor. I had a couple blankets and a pillow. Around me were books and an old cassette player I'd bought from a friend for $10.
My room was all I had for a haven. Most of the time, if I wasn't at school, I was in that room, reading and listening to music. My love of Kitaro started there, as did my love of Depeche Mode.
In fact, I loved Depeche Mode so much that I smuggled the liner notes from the Violator album into boot camp, but that is another story.
I read countless books, mostly science fiction and fantasy. I read Ender's Game overnight without sleeping, nearly missing school the next day.
I even hid there from my family.
As a child, I had been a Trekie. I used to watch reruns of the original Star Trek with my parents. I watched Star Trek the Next Generation as the episodes originally aired. I had the hots for Tasha Yar, and then, they killed her off. That was pretty much when I stopped watching.
My family continued to watch Star Trek, every available episode. I grew apart from the shows and the universe. This was just one example of my family's obsessions that I did not enjoy, like when they watched Beetlejuice 8 times in a row on one weekend. It was over a decade before I could appreciate that movie again.
One day, my father took offense that I hid from the family in my room. I remember being ordered to "watch television with the family." By then, I never watched television and almost universally disliked everything on it. Needless to say, watching television with my family did not qualify as family time for me.
Eventually, I joined the Navy and left home. I slept in beds like normal people, but every once in a while, I would find a reason to sleep on the floor, piles of clothes on the bed, discomfort in a hotel, whatever.
Now, decades later, I am a divorcee. I live alone in an apartment. For months after I moved in, I slept on the floor. Because a house guest was coming, I bought a shikifuton. This is the top layer of the Japanese sleep system, a simple 4" cotton stuffed pad. Today, my shikifuton is the closest I come to a bed. It is heaven compared to sleeping on the carpet, but it has compressed to probably 2". Once again, I find myself basically sleeping on the floor.
