Chiming

The note that pops up when my morning phone alarm sounds, reads, “I am the author of this day”

Via instinct when the chiming sound integrates into my dream world, I wake, crawl to the end of my bed, and rip the phone from its fraying charging cord. I hit stop before the chime reaches its peak loudness and move back under my covers like a snake into brush. I rarely wake up refreshed and I rarely read the note that appears when the chiming begins.

This alarm sounds every day at exactly 6:30 am. I mean every day, even on the weekends. I do not allow myself to sleep in because I am familiar with that slippery slope and I enjoy dreamland a little too much.

The funny thing about my alarm is, that I don’t need it. As instinctively as I hurdle my body to the end of the bed to stop the chiming I also wake up almost exactly 5 minutes before the alarm finds its voice. In that five minutes, my eyes flash to the clock near my bed even though I know what time it is and then I force myself to fall back asleep for those remaining few moments.

And then, I wake up feeling like shit. In that five minutes, I enter an all-new sleep cycle that will be quickly broken by the chiming sound. This short stint of sleep wrecks me and makes it almost impossible to get up and sometimes I find myself rolling around in bed for 30 more minutes.

My reasoning is, I deserve a little rest. Yes, I have been in my bed since 9 pm the previous night but I deserve more, right?

I deserve the awful crick that forms in my neck from being one with the pillows and covers for too long.

I deserve to miss my couple of hours of peace before my day of meetings begins.

I deserve those weird lucid dreams that happen too quickly to control.

And, I deserve that sleep sweat that leaves me smelling funny when my time cocooned in my down comforter has expired.

The irony is that I choose this. Because in the same way, my eyes flash open at 6:25 they also gently find light at 6:00 and 5:30.

My eyes do not violently dart to my clock like they do at 6:25 but drift to find new light out my window or to see my sleeping cat at the end of the bed.

In these early hours, it is conceivable to me that I am the author of my day. It is early enough to know that the world of the living does not expect me yet and I can find peace in my house while the light outside is still soft.

Sometimes, I even yawn and stretch like those girls in the movies who wake up beautiful. My hair is not caked to my face yet from sleep sweat and those moments of tossing haven’t happened.

At those natural wake-up times, I do not feel tired but I stay in bed anyway. I would like to say it's because I want to stave off all of the one-sided conversations that will take place in my professional world but I even do this on the good days.

Maybe it's because I let myself grow pretty familiar with emotional suffering and these days it's not really around so I create it.

I liken my 6:30 alarm to what it feels like when you have accidentally cut your finger too short. It makes my entire body feel stiff and I wish it would not have happened. The sound even makes my teeth feel like they are growing tiny hairs.

Maybe I should just leave the alarm off and see what happens. I am indeed the author of this day and the sounds that enter it. I am the author of what tiny hairs grow and my teeth and how short I trim my fingernails.