MyDailyDose

     What is your daily routine?  We all have a few, don’t we?   There may be small ones, like a particular cereal or fruit that constitutes your first meal of the day or rising to stretch before trotting to the bathroom to do a few ‘health habits’ i.e. brushing your hair or teeth .. splashing water on your face and welcoming the dripping wet reflection of you that raises itself in the mirror, standing in an identical bathroom to your own.  Of course, the towel rack is on the opposite side.  
 
     Perhaps you run in the morning and like leaving for your work with a feeling of exhilaration, fresh from the shower that follows such a rigorous ritual.   Exercise does that!    How different would it be, if you rose knowing another person was still resting in the bed you climbed out of?   Would that break your routine or is that person another part of the routine you have?  It’s a lover, a boyfriend, a husband.   
 
     I have routines too.  Mine are designed especially for me .. by me.  This morning, when I got up, I did so, listening to the soft breath of a sleeping beauty.   Sleeping beauties are all that remain beside me, until morning.  It doesn’t take long to develop a habit like that.  But, reaching that point is filled with dilemmas.  Which brings up another aspect of routines.  The ‘with a sleepover’ routines and the ‘without a sleepover’ behaviors.  Do yours change or are you a ‘take or leave it’ sort?  Do you wake ’em’ to complete your necessaries or do you allow them more time and undertake your chores, as though completely alone.  I guess there’s other dynamics at work here.  How well you know them?  Maybe they passed out at some point .. maybe drugs and alcohol were involved .. maybe they’re the main squeeze, the be-all, end-all of your existence.  She was none of these. 
 
     She was Tonya; fresh into a separation .. too long without a man’s gentle touch .. tortured in a long relationship without a routine tenderness to rely on, because of it’s ability to grow sticky fingers that pried into her privacy and betrayed her with unfounded accusations and disgusting conclusions too many times to be welcomed with a trusting, loving heart. 
 
     Often, I saw it on her face and confirmed it in the way she moved and interacted among common friends.  Most of us knew, but we didn’t discuss it .. beyond the arguments in our own minds.  It wasn’t something to gossip about.  Tonya was bright and outgoing.  With him, she was more quiet .. leaving the primary conversation for him to conduct, with a comment or two of her own thrown in.  Afterall, he was the man, the male coin in the couple pocket.   To be viewed, as a strong partnership, with him as the leader and her as the heart of it ..  the surrender was small, she thought.  If she disagreed, she simply  walked away to discuss it later .. with him, in privacy.  That’s how we knew she was lost to him.  Without him close, she chattered and chimed, smiled and laughed without a care.   ‘Pair’ questions that effected them both were not answered without a reference to talking it over with the other.  They appeared to be a perfect union.
 
     So, the rumors of discord .. the speculation of a crack in the wall of their relationship came as a shock .. not Tonya and Mike!  ~ Tonya always impressed me.  She was lovely and desirable and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that.  However, she was classy .. aloft for all her personality, once you got to know her.  Mike arrived on the scene, equally impressive .. to the ladies .. and gents alike.  He looked military with his trim, toned physique and boyish good looks.  His haircut was close to the scalp on the sides and on top, his hair stood like a close cropped mowed lawn .. very short and cleanly done.  He dressed, as sophisticated as she.  They matched in both style and intellect.  Not Tonya and Mike.  
 
     Tonya was my inspiration for one of my entries.  She inspired me, because I wanted her so .. in spite of Mike.  My heroine had her first name.   Now, here she was .. breathing peacefully, only a few feet away.  What have I done?
 
     I tell myself, I’ve cemented her exit from Mike.  I tell myself, Mike will never know.  I can’t bring myself to feel that I’m HIS replacement, because the anguish and torment of that relationship .. the separation process .. is fresh in her mind.   It’s too early and ..  THAT’S a role I’ve played before .. often.  I was a breath of freedom .. a vacation from the inner dialog of self examination that sustains, then pursues life changing processes.   I was her exercise in freedom of choice .. and .. I was her open door to run through; her chance to ‘feel’ something gone missing.  She ‘dumped’ on me, when she spoke of her ordeal and the mysteries it had left her with .. uncertainty, confusion, betrayal.  She dumped on me, when she buried her tears on my shoulder and rested her head in the crook of my neck to recover with tissue and more tears.   She dumped on me .. after her long silence, when I wondered if she’d fallen asleep, but I found, instead ..  her eyes, calm in their pain, telling me she had a mouth to press kisses on and one small tender one could make a big difference for her.   She dumped on me, when her needs broke out of her shell and she climbed from my limbs, like a child on the jungle gym in the park .. excited and reckless. 
 
     She has no idea, what a memory she’s given me .. even her postscipt of lying sensuous and still .. in MY bed  .. a sleeping beauty .. will find it’s immortality in the folklore of my love library .. for every moment in the arms of a lover is part of the story behind it.  I want to end this encounter in the arms of romance.  I don’t want my ‘routines’ to wake her or have them steal my moment of watching her eyes open again to the world she’s a part of .. the world that sends her soul into exile, the world that traps her heart in limbo and fills her head with unworthiness and loss.
 
     I will lightly kiss her lips, before I kiss the rest of her.   She may touch me or may not.  But, she will see me .. feel me .. as I unbind her and set her free .. to fly.