Have you ever deliberately thought about about mornings through an anthropological lens?
Who wakes up early? Who wakes up at 2pm?
Of those who do either, what do their lives look like?
And of those, which are choosing to rise and which and forced?
I often joke about how much I dislike greeting the day.
A large part of that is because I know how lovely mornings can be.
My senior year, I would wake up, go work out for half an hour, come back and sit on my balcony, eat breakfast and journal/do my devo.
Then I would get ready for class and leave. On time.
More importantly than anything else, NO ONE WOULD TALK TO ME. No one else was awake either in my house. I was alone.
It was the most beautiful beautiful beautiful part of every day and I looked forward to it each morning.
For that hour and a half or so, I had flawless, unadulterated silence. I could start my morning fresh and lovely.
It was important to me.
Doesn't matter what time I wake up, someone in my house is already awake and interacting with me, verbally or nonverbally. I cannot handle it. So I stay asleep an extra hour and a half, wake up sleepy, and barely make it on work each day.
But I love my job.
Other people I know dread mornings for very different reasons.
When I waitressed, I knew so many who worked the night shift, stayed up all night drinking and smoking pot (and doing lots of other nighttime activities), waking up at 2 in the afternoon, showering, and making it to their 3:30 shift.
Because why would they wake up? Wake up to hangovers and empty time and too many thoughts of, "What am I doing with my life?" The people I knew couldn't wake up early because they didn't want to think. What they live is not a life. It's a pattern. It's a schedule. And they don't even make the schedule themselves.
When I lived alone, I never greeted the morning. My eyes opened to text every few hours of the 24, but there wasn't a conscious decision to get up, get out, get going.
I've known many others like that as well. Early nights and late mornings. Because we don't want to be awake at all. We don't want to exist. And we can't stay to a schedule. Not ours nor anyone else's.
Then the early risers.
The at-home moms, the at-work moms, the working fathers, the multiple job workers, the interns, both sexes of the unmarrieds. Driven, determined, potentially robotic, but steely and resolute nonetheless.
Their actions are measured and backed by a goal: I will pay my rent, I will buy 10,000 diapers, I will get that promotion, I will take care of my family, I will get this recommendation, I will fill I will build I will win.
What's ironic about the life of the sleepers and the life of the sleepless is that it is often driven by the same thing.
Very often, on both poles, is the desire not to think. To work, to exist, to make what's needed to survive (or thrive), but not to really live.
I'm sure there's balance out there, and I'm sure there are those who fall outside the categories of observations I've noted here, but I find that without careful measurement and very conscious efforts of spending time alone to unknot my thoughts with myself and the Lord (especially at the start of the day), I lean and fall into the pattern of doing life and avoiding active participation in it.
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