Lie For You

A Mad Women's Routines

As the mornings grew longer in the summer, and the nights in which I've loathed were shorter, I had come to a new sense of reality in which a simple routine would dictate my mood for the rest of the day.

If that made sense in the slightest.

It would begin with waking up in white and smooth linen sheets of my bed.

When waking up at seven became a strict no brainer, I would give myself exactly 2 minutes to stretch in bed. As I would get up, my back muscles would flex from the eight hour hibernation.

I would proceed to my kitchen, specifically to my wooden vintage fridge to pull out two cold spoons imported from Italy.

 Not that you would care.

The cold temperature of the spoons would aid the size of my blue eye bags and wake me up from my slumber.

I would also drink ginger and lemon infused water because regular water isn't good anymore, and the sour taste of the lemons and ginger had a slight intoxicating taste, sort of like the cold kvas my grandpa use to ferment with my father.

And as perplexing as it seems, I would head to the veranda - laced with the smell of thyme and mist and perform a few stretches.

I would begin with a something simple like a leg stretch and end with a downward dog into an inverted bridge.

As I completed this routine, my pale skin would be dampened with minuscule droplets of cold sweat from the breeze, so I would also need to take a shower.

For the majority of people who take showers; a shower is just a shower. But for me it was a daily ritual.  After stripping myself of my pyjamas, and leaving myself with nothing but my pearl earrings. 

I would step onto nautical blue mosaic tiles, enjoying the contact of my padded toes against the cold smoothness of the white tiles.

It was absolute bliss in its finest form.

And unlike others I would turn the nob to it's maximum heat. Enjoying the feeling of boiling water on my body.

I used a simple soap made of lye and rose. It would scrub away at every pore and scab until it left nothing behind.
I let myself get red.
I looked good in red.

Sometimes when I felt at a loss I would lay down because the shower was large enough to accommodate to my body.

And I would lay there for what felt like hours but it was only for few minutes,  because when you're depressed or sad it seems as if time and life itself slow down while the rest of the world runs at the normal pace.
Ceasing to end.
There were many times when I cried.
Days when I wanted to lay in a pool of my blood, sweat, and tears.
And when the hours began to fade into days, and days into weeks - laying in that shower would tether me to the ground.

After my long showers I would wrap myself in thick towels and only use ice water to keep me awake at this point.

Then, I would find myself staring at my hazy reflection, my pruny hands would come up to mirror to wipe away at the steam but it would never wipe away my sadness.

As depressing as it may sound it never worked. No matter how hard I wiped.
No matter how deep I etched my hand into the mirror.

And in a split second, like the moment the pianist would play her decrescendo, I'd plunge my face into icy water, I would hold my breath for as long as I could, because I liked pushing my limits and making myself feel challenged by nature and by God.

And in an abrupt motion my hands would grip the wooden handles of the drawers as my head would jerk up, spilling water onto the surface of the table as it would cascade effortlessly onto the tiles.

And that was the end of a mad women's routine.
It was insane, but alright to do.