Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday are public holidays here, which means 4 day weekend, baby! I imagined 4 days of no alarms and no waking up before 9AM, of cloudy skies and sweatpants weather, of not having to wait until 8PM to watch Game of Thrones.

What I got, however, was 4 days of “beautiful” weather (warm/almost hot, not a cloud in the sky), and unintentionally waking up at 5:30AM every day.

On the first morning, the cat woke me up by hitting me in the face with her tail as she slept on my chest. I moved her away and then fell back to sleep. Then, it was a mosquito buzzing juuuuuust outside my ear. Finally, it was too hot. So, I just gave up and moved to the lounge. And the same thing basically happened over the next three days.

But there was something nice about hanging out in those quiet early morning hours. I got to read, have tea, quietly watch bad movies, and get undivided attention from the cat – who, by the way, gave no fucks about waking me up at the crack of dawn. And apart from Monday morning where I lapsed into a coma while reading and had a horrible nightmare and sleep paralysis, it was actually a pleasant way to spend the morning.

It got me thinking of all the people I know who wake up early in the morning to write, before the day begins. I’ve always brushed them off, because I have never, ever, been a morning person. When I was younger, it took a village of alarm clocks and my mom banging on the ceiling under my room with a broom to roust me out of bed. And I usually slept in until I had just 20 mins to get dressed, brush my teeth, and get the hell out the door. In college, I narrowed it down to 10 minutes.

However, as I’ve grown up, I’ve started to like early early mornings, before all the bullshit of the day happens. And as long as I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything, I’m quite happy to get up early. But waking up early to go somewhere (ie work) sucks.

So with the new early morning routine seeming to happen with or without my consent, and since Anzac Day was this week so we only had a 3 day work week, I figured, why not try getting out of bed early every day this week?

Sure! Here’s how it went:

Mon: wake up at 5:30AM, read, fall asleep, had Trump themed nightmare

Tues: slept through every alarm, dragged myself out of bed at 6:50, opened laptop, typed two words, ran out of steam

Weds: slept through every alarm, couldn’t pay me to get out of bed early

Thurs: PUBLIC HOLIDAY YAY – cat wakes us up by walking into the bedroom and yowling – LOUDLY like she’s in pain. It’s 6:20AM. I get up to make sure she’s not hurt, and Joel finds some random cat poops on the floor in the lounge – highly weird, because she’s never messed outside of her box before. I’m holding the cat and she’s strangely compliant, like she was worried and needed to be held. Joel cleans up the floor poops and sees poop in her litter box. Joel scoops the poop out of the box and there is a MASSIVE cockroach crawling around in the litter. All I can imagine is, as Pancake was doing a poo, and the cockroach either fell from the wall on to her, or crawled over her foot, she freaked the fuck out, felt embarrassed, and woke us up to take care of it. I don’t blame her for accidentally pooping on the floor. If a cockroach fell on me or otherwise touched me while I was pooping, Joel would have had a much bigger mess to clean up.

Fri: woke up at 7:10, have to be out the door by 7:30. Whoops.

Sat: woke up with what was either food poisoning or typically brutal hangover (every time I drink more than 1 glass of red wine, I’m ill. I mean, drinking it after champagne doesn’t help, but I can’t help myself so there), so from 4:30AM I woke up every 15-30 minutes to be vomiting from one end or the other. Nooo way Jose on any writing.

Sun: blissfully slept until 8AM. I very nearly opened lap top but decided deep cleaning the closet would be more fun.

They say it’s all in the intent, right?

Right?
Maybe it takes more than 1 week to become a morning person.

*fingers crossed*