About two weeks ago, I set my weekday alarm for 5:15 AM, and I’ve actually been getting up. Prior to this, I had an alarm set for 5:55 AM, but usually didn’t roll out of bed until 6:10 or 6:30-ish, depending on whether I needed to be at the gym for training or not, and then I’d engage in a frenzied attempt to achieve escape velocity and get out of the house to the gym or work as quickly as possible. I like to try to get to work around 7-ish when possible so that I can leave at 4-ish and have more after work time for myself. My work brain also shuts off around 2 - 3 PM so this way I waste less time struggling to think about stuff like spreadsheets and email and not getting anywhere.
Starting at the end of June, I’ve signed up for a big, scary commitment to trying to become a better writer, in the hopes that I can get that one essay that lives inside of me out, FINALLY! I need to get in the habit of writing, or revising, or reading stuff that informs writing, and I need time for that. I decided it would be wise to start on that now, and I took a look at my calendar and my snooze button. I got honest with myself - I was not really falling back to sleep after the initial alarm - and decided the early morning was the best spot I had.
I wasn’t sure how this would go, but to my surprise it’s been fairly easy to stick to it. I allow myself one five minute period after the alarm goes off to acclimate to being awake, since usually I am jolted from sleep when it goes off - I actually adjusted my alarm to 5:10 AM to make it so that I’m actually out of bed at 5:15. I let the dog out, start his breakfast, make coffee, and get about 45 minutes of uninterrupted time. My brain has been surprisingly fresh for it and I’ve discovered I enjoy the time.
The flip side of this, since I have not suddenly started needing less sleep, is that I’ve been falling asleep earlier. This in turn means that I have less before bed reading time, which is a bit of a bummer, but I can use some of the morning time for reading when I’m trying to glean something creativity related from it.
Some quotes
“The coroner didn’t hear the knock and jumped when the door opened. The man’s daughter approached. The coroner excused himself and was heading for the door when he glimpsed for the first time how the world did not break all at once but started to crack just as it was doing across the lovely face of that mans daughter, like madness, like euphoria.”
- The Liberators, E. J. Koh
“Liliana committed words to paper to express her feelings and points of view as much as to connect with others.”
- Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, Christina Rivera Garza (Pulitzer prize winner)
“Grief is the end of loneliness.”
- Liliana’s Invincible Summer, Christina Rivera Garza