Ordinarily, I like change. I think fighting the inevitable flow of life simply makes people upset for no good reason.

Sometimes this means letting go of the things we hold near and dear to our hearts, but that’s the price we pay for living in this modern world. As with most things, however, there are exceptions.

Like my pillow.

Somehow over the past decade or so, my pillow has evolved from a source of comfort and rest to a floppy piece of fabric unfit for man or beast. The thing has lost any source of support.

I stuck by my old friend for a long time. I would fold him up to try and make a half-sized pillow that would meet my needs, but that never quite worked. More often than not, I ended up with an arm underneath the pillow for some support, which would kind of help me sleep, but always resulted in my arm falling asleep.

We have plans to buy a new bed because our current mattress has seen better days, but we started the process the other day by shopping for pillows.

My wife needed some new pillows for the decorative shams which she uses for a backrest when we watch TV in bed. Since the ones she uses now had lost a little of their shape, she figured I could use one of them for my new pillow.

I need a broken in pillow, and all of the pillows in the store were just too firm for my liking. I enthusiastically agreed with this idea.

After a few days, I wanted my floppy, useless pillow back. Maybe it’s because I tried to adjust to the new pillow when Death Valley temperatures decided to descend upon Hanover.

It’s kind of hard to feel comfortable with a new pillow when even your elbows manage to sweat. We had the air conditioning and ceiling fan going, but I still felt way too uncomfortable to give the pillow a fair chance.

I had become too used to sliding one or both of my arms underneath the pillow for support. When I tried that tactic with the new pillow, I just felt all wrong, but I couldn’t find a comfortable position with my arms anywhere else.

When I lay on my side, I would eventually fall asleep, but felt like my head was resting at an angle since the pillow was so much thicker than my old one.

I know. I have a rough life.

I eventually found an older pillow in the closet which seems to be working better. I guess all I can do is wait. I don’t remember how my old pillow started out, but it certainly couldn’t have been that floppy and useless from the beginning. I have to just give this new pillow some time to settle down into something I can live with.

I fear that my nightly sleep won’t be sufficient for this task. I will have to find some time to sleep during the day in order to complete this task.

This is how I come to accept this difficult change. I didn’t realize early on that I would get some extra naps out of this. I should change pillows more often.