Can Someone Out There Help Me Become a Morning Person?
Project 365, Day 128/365
Oh mornings. I both loathe and love you. Loathe you because you prove my weakness nearly every time I attempt to meet you earlier than normal. Love you because you’re wonderful and peaceful and glorious. Friends, I so badly wish I were someone who could wake up with the sun without contemplating violence. The funny thing is, is that if I need to be somewhere, I can always get up. Six or 7:00 am used to be my flying time of choice, which typically called for a 3 am wake-up call. But if I have zero obligations, the will to stay in bed until my normal 9, 9:30 always wins out.
Here’s a question though for all your morning people: I hear there’s a lore of someone who “wakes up” and then “can’t go back to sleep,” but outside of that urban legend, for anyone who chooses to be a morning person…does it ever get easier? Or do you fight yourself every morning until you shake off the sleep?
While Charles and I were away, I noticed that strangely, the sun was setting away from the water, so I came up with the idea to wake up early to see if we could catch the sun from the beach in some weird twist of fates. The words I uttered Monday night shocked me to my core: “Do you want to wake up and try to see the sunrise tomorrow morning?” WHAT?!? WHO SAID THAT? Vacation Arlyn is highly unpredictable.
Charles, always up for a sunrise, agreed, and I set my alarm for 5:45 am after seeing that the sun would rise at 6:05. And the unthinkable happened…I actually woke up. I draped myself in a robe, sauntered onto the balcony to assess the situation and realized…I was wrong. The sun wasn’t really rising over the water, because #duh…that’s literally not how it works, so I climbed back into bed. Only to hop right back up and decide to sit out and take in the morning anyway from my balcony. And then, we started seeing the sun creeping up from under the mountain range that wrapped around the harbor, and I was only half wrong.
And I have to say. Sitting there in the quiet of the morning, listening to the finches chirping in the trees around us, watching people run and walk their dogs in the soft light of dawn, I really, really wanted to comfortably be “one of them”…a morning person. But just to be clear, I want to be a person who chooses the morning, not has an obligation to the morning…get me?
Once dawn had squarely settled into morning, I went back inside, under my covers and said to Charles “let me rest for a few, then maybe we can go grab an early breakfast?” I woke up three hours later.
For the next morning, feeling highly ambitious due to sticking to waking up with my alarm the day prior, I plotted another 5:45 am wake up…and immediately shut it off when it started to ring. Upon opening my eyes around 8, I instantly regretted it. Why is it so hard to want something, and then actually do it?!?
I recognize that I write very differently in the morning than I do at night. In the morning, I have a clear mind for storytelling. I have hope for a new day and time to flush out my thoughts. At night, I’m playing a game of chicken with the clock, lured by my bed at 10, 11 pm. I much prefer “morning writer with coffee” Arlyn than “nighttime writer with the desire to go watch TV” Arlyn.
So, I beg and I plead, to all the morning folks out there…how do I become one of you? Am I doomed for a life of snoozing ’til mid-morning as a bonafide sleep lover? I may never happily and graciously awake with the sun, but I welcome your suggestions.
See you tomorrow, FOAS.