For the month of April, I’m participating in Susannah Conway’s #AprilLove2016 and writing a love letter to a different someone/thing every day. Today’s love letter is to Morning.
Dear Morning,
You know, there’s morning and then there’s o’dark-thirty morning where it’s not really morning except for the fact that I went to bed the night before and woke up to start the day. For well over a decade now, I’ve been doing the o’dark-thirty version of morning — in fact, where I previously lived, I had a long enough drive that to get to work on time at 6am, my alarm clock got me out of bed at 3:45am. Like I said, that’s not even really morning except by technicality.
These days it’s a 4:30am wake-up call during the week; it’s not really something I’ve ever gotten used to, though I have gotten used to getting home from work with afternoon to spare. And even though I struggle every day to get out of bed, there is one part that I enjoy: by 5am or so, I’m headed outside with the dog for her morning walk (“walk” is an exaggeration — she spends about 15 seconds outside, comes back in and as soon as I unleash her, she goes back to bed) and I look up and say, “Good morning, Moon!” because I know that the Moon probably doesn’t hear that very often.
I’ll say this, though — the too-early-to-be-mornings that I have such problems with 5 days a week make me appreciate the mornings on the weekends where I don’t wake up to an alarm, but still get up early because my body doesn’t listen to my brain when it tells it to sleep in. I love being out of bed by 6:30am or so, enjoying the quiet of the morning before the neighborhood comes alive and getting through a long list of errands and to-do’s and having the whole afternoon left to play.
Coming from the girl who couldn’t schedule an 8am class during college because she’d have to skip it more often than not, the fact that I’ve become a morning person takes me completely by surprise. I recall a conversation with my Dad at the very beginning of my working career. I was still living at home and I foggily looked at him over my raisin bran and said, “And I have to do this EVERY DAY for my ENTIRE LIFE???” I couldn’t fathom getting up for work 5 days a week for the next 40 years or so. Still can’t even though I’ve got more than 25 of those years behind me already. Oh, and my Dad totally just laughed at me. I’m pretty sure I made his morning that day.
So, here I am. It’s after 8pm and I’m thinking, “Get this post finished up so you can go to bed.” Nighttime has become the enemy now.
My, how you’ve changed my life, Morning.
Love, Laura.
