6:30 am

PB got called back to work today. He's been laid off since Labor Day Weekend '09. He was sad as he can't spend all day helping me in the shop anymore. It really got his attention that what he enjoyed for the past 7 months is over for now.

So it is back to the little routine I knew when I first met him. Back then Jun 08, PB had his little life, his little routine that he followed most days. Every morning he'd get up at 5:15am, get dressed, make and pack his lunch and midmorning snack into his soft sided cooler and fill his football travel mug with coffee. He'd be out the door by 6. He'd get home by 5, take a nap, then go on the computer and look on the personals and play poker online. Every other Friday night, he's play poker at his buddy's house. He did not expect much from life and was happy with what he had. His dad even had a little place at the lake, but PB never used it. It would deviate from the routine, and he did not think that far.
He was happy in his simple life. Once when he was much younger, he'd had dreams, but like many of us, those dreams had evaporated and were mostly forgotten.

Then I came along. For the most part his life remained unchanged. I craved a normal simple life. I envied the routine he had and embraced it. New love fills a person's body with crazed hormones. You don't sleep, you lay there at night, trying to fall asleep, you don't eat, you don't know why. All you do know is that the entire world now revolves around that new person, and nothing else matters. At least that's the way it was for me.

I'd lay there awake, laying next to the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, cuddled up to him, hoping against hope, that I would get to always be there with him. Everything was fresh and new.

And I wake up with him every morning at 5:15, make and pack his lunch, kiss him good morning and after he'd left for work, clean the kitchen and start my day. It was as if I was fresh and new again. 25 years old with my whole life ahead of me, not 48 and too many miles of bad road behind me.

I had not willingly woken up that early since 1984 when I lived on the Connecticut River in a 200 yr old farmhouse. I'd wake up with a cup of tea and climb out onto the porch roof and watch the sun rise over the endless fields across the street. 26 years later, those fields are gone, covered by a shopping mall and office buildings, hell, even the farmhouse was torn down in Nov.
But in the almost two years since PB and I met, his life has changed quite a bit. The lake place he never used? We use it alot. And some of those lost dreams became reality. He has his own Harley. He has been to quite a few bike events, like Daytona Bike week, The VTwin Expo, The Big Mountain Run, Mountain Fest. Even SEMA in Las Vegas. And he has hung and partied with some of the best people in the industry.
But with those adventures and dreams, come the dues. You must pay dues. Not everyone has the cahonies for that. Long hours in the shop, things going wrong, and the awful hours it takes to fix them, dealing with the financial realities of the custom business. Not many of us get rich, and many who do, well, they had "previous endeavours" that made them the resources that paid the bills.

The wild hormones of new love have faded. Each night, I sleep like a 4 yr old after a day at the amusement park. I eat too much as I am happy, for the first time in my life, I have become fat. The kitchen is not always sparklingly clean. PB's home no longer feels like a full on miracle each day. It is my home and I am used to it.

But I do take it all for granted? No.

PB and I are in deep love. The kind of love that we hope new love turns into. Each time I look at him, its like looking at him for the first time. I see this incredibly sexy man, who is so sweet and so beautiful inside and out. My heart melts all over again.

We gave each other what the other one needed. I gave wings to his dreams and believed in him. He gave me something that I had never known, real love, that cuddles me at night, that makes me tea each morning, that fusses over me as if I were a princess. That tries to protect me from the bad old world.

Its getting light out side. I'll take out my bicycle and do about 8 miles. I haven't done my morning workout since May 09. But now its all changed. each morning, I'll rise at 5, make my man his lunch, send him off to work, then clean the kitchen and do my workout, taking in all the beauty that a home in the country offers. Then I'll have my breakfast and get out into the shop.

I'm 50 years old and I have my whole life ahead of me.