breathe on me

When I was little and I would sneak onto my parent's bed, I always wanted to synchronize my breathing with my mom's breathing, while she slept, so that I wouldn't have to breathe her 'old' air. Even as a teenager, if I shared a bed with my mom, or my sister, I insisted on synchronizing our breathing. I could not stand the thought of breathing someone else's 'old' air. Until now. Tonight, as I put Chloë to bed, I was singing to her, and she fell asleep on my shoulders, her face nuzzled against my own. Once she was asleep, I stopped singing and just stared at her. I could stare at her for hours, days. And that's when I realized that I could feel her breathing against my own breathing, and that I was in fact breathing her old air. Except, I cherished it. And for once, I did not try to synchronize my breathing.

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