Despite the wonders of technology, modern society is built on routine.

When the alarm on my phone wakes me up, I check Twitter to see what I missed while I slept. Coming home from work, I put on Netflix without having any idea of what I want to watch. I can’t remember the last time I went to the bathroom without my phone in my hands.

The problem with routine is that it robs us from life.

We get caught in the cyclical nature of routine and forget the best memories of life are moments off the path of our everyday activities. Ask me what my favorite moment of last year was and I won’t say the time I drove home from work on a Tuesday.

I bring this up because recently I was able to escape the clutches of routine to make a memory worth remembering.

*

I was in my nightly routine of turning on my nightstand lamp and getting ready to take a shower and go to bed. My dog Dexter understands the routine. He will lay on the couch after I come home from work but when I am taking a shower, he knows to leave and jump on the bed.

Only this time he was early.

I turned on the lamp and plugged in my phone when Dexter came and jumped on the bed. As he tends to do late at night, he felt the urge to play. I needed to take a shower, but instead I indulged myself and wrestled around with him for a few minutes. Then, like Mr. Hyde turning back into Dr. Jekyll, he turned from ravenous beast into what I call Mr. Lovey Dovey.

With him finally calmed down, I could have returned to my routine and got into the shower. I had class early in the morning, so Lord knows I needed to sleep.

Except this time, I decided to do something different.

*

It’s been a tumultuous year for Dexter.

Earlier this spring, I was worried that he was constipated because – we’re all adults here – he was having trouble going boom boom. I took him to the vet and they ran tests to show that he wasn’t, but the doc did a thing to show the reflexes of his back paw were a bit slow. He gave Dexter two bottles of pills to help with that.

Flash-forward to a hot night weeks later, with the AC running on full blast, and Dexter was laying on the floor breathing heavily. Concerned, I looked up the symptoms and I was worried (understatement) that it might be bloat – a potentially fatal condition in which a dog’s stomach twists and they’re dead within a few hours. It’s the equivalent of searching your symptoms on WebMD and being convinced you have cancer.

It was around two in the morning when I rushed him to a nearby emergency clinic, worried that my best friend was dying in the passenger seat. The vet diagnosed him with early stages of IVDD – a spine condition that effects breeds of dogs like beagle (check) and dachshund (check). He was breathing heavily and acting unusual because he was in pain.

The vet gave him two more bottles of pills to take, I’ve had to pick him up and carry him up and down stairs on our walks and safeguard my apartment so he (or I) could easily sit down on the couch or chair.

It’s part of being a dog owner when your friend gets older.

*

He has seemed better in the weeks after The Ordeal and that set up the night in question.

I realized quickly in the moment, both of us laying there on my bed, that I needed to take some time to appreciate the moment. We couldn’t have been more than six inches apart from each other – face-to-face.

I started to pet him. Behind his ears. Down the length of his body. On top of his head. Our eyes were locked on each other. The nonverbal communication was understood. Two minutes turned into five, which turned into ten. We both comprehended the moment and we both needed it. I escaped routine and his big brown eyes pleaded for more strokes behind the ears.

It was the rawest form of communication. Man and animal. One that relied on nonverbal cues.

The message?

I love you.