You don’t sleep here anymore

source: Calvinklein.com

I’m in the middle of a complete bedroom overhaul. I’ve stripped the bed of every pillow where he may have laid his head.  I’ve thrown away the plum duvet and sheets that he stained with his desires.  More than washing away his morning scent, it now resides in the garbage, where I’ve placed it. The throw pillows that we joked were too numerous are now in the trash bin.

I’ve exchanged them for slate grey-green bedding flecked with gold, brown and terra cotta – simple, deep, and beautiful; More masculine than my last set.

I’ve removed the thin, golden drapes that used to seep in sunlight to wake him, the drapes he used to pull aside to spy on the backyard.  I’ve swapped them for thick, chocolate-brown, pleated, blackout drapes that fool me into thinking it’s midnight when it’s twilight. Their weight makes them difficult to pull back.  I’m still looking for replacements for the chair, the mirror, the lamp – and the vase that he could see from his side of the bed.

I’ve replaced his side of the bed. My room feels like a cave, a cocoon, now.  I haven’t slept more soundly.

STATS:

Days since I’ve contacted my ex:  16

Days since I’ve searched for my ex: 5

What I am grateful for:  Mornings when I open my bedroom door and there isn’t cat barf on the hall carpet, when there’s coffee waiting for me in the pot, when my sick kitty eats his breakfast and I have the motivation to take my morning walk.

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Bed

The last guy I dated, I couldn’t sleep next to him.  After sex, I’d doze for a bit, perhaps, but in the end, I’d find myself crawling from his arms to sleep on the couch.  I’d always find my way back between the sheets in the early dawn.  The real sleep, the vulnerable hours of my deepest dreaming, was spent elsewhere, away from him. On our vacation, I spent the dead of night in the bedroom next door. At the time,  I thought this was an ultimate consequence of a life spent in a single girl’s bed, the final straw.

But my new guy, I sleep with him just fine.  He’s worried that his snoring keeps me awake.  I assure him that his rhythmic breathing doesn’t bother me at all – and it really doesn’t.  That’s not snoring. I’m glad I own my tiny queen bed – no room for us to separate. I smile when he spoons me, feeling his warmth along my back.  I need his hand on my hip or my foot on his calf, a gentle reminder that he is there, and I sleep soundly, completely.