I slept in this morning; not a lot and probably not enough, but it was much brighter than it usually is when I stood to greet the day.
I am quite used to darkness in the morning. It is more than common for me to be awake and off to the coffee shop while most everybody else is still asleep.
I have always been an early riser. Winter or summer, I am mostly up before the sun. It is natural for me. Often those first few hours of the day are my most productive. I get a lot of writing done as the coffee kicks in and my mind finds its way.
It’s pretty easy to use my circadian rhythm as an excuse, but I think it is a time-honoured habit. It is a habit I would actually like to break.
This morning, I tried. I didn’t check my mobile device, knowing that one thing would lead to another and soon I’d be habitually checking out all the usual notifications and my mind would become too active (as it often is). I listened to the radio a little longer than I usually do, caught the morning news announcing the good and evil(s) of the world, and managed to fall back to sleep awhile.
“Awhile”, in this case, is a subjective term. It wasn’t a long or deep sleep, but it was enough to delay my traditional early start.
Waking early is a habit and, like any habit, altering this one is going to take a bit of time. But I have that time; I have the rest of the day and each day I will try to wake a little later.
© 2026 j.g. lewis
