photo by Harriet Grace, via
Hello, lovelies. I think this morning should begin straight off with a cup of something hot to drink, don’t you? That’ll warm us and you’ll have something to drink while you read, and I’ll have something to drink while I write, something bold and deep, with a touch of sweet and a thick pour of mellow cream (chai tea for me, lately). But, really, if there were no other reason, a good cup of hot in the morning somehow seems to set to right all that was wrong during the night (a puppy who was not nearly as sleepy as we), and perk us right up, pinching our cheeks pink in time for a fresh new day (and of course now the puppy is completely zonked in the chair, ahem).
I decided to call this post the prelude because, before I go into giving you a window into how I begin my day, I wanted to give you the backstory as to why I begin it the way I do. Can I be honest? I’d rather not share this part of me. I don’t know, it just seems very personal and most definitely unusual (but then again, we’re living unusual, so what should I be worried about?).
As I thought about whether or not to write about this, I remembered the day, a few years back, when I serendipitously listened to a brave woman (I think it was an interview, and I don’t even remember who she was, sadly) share her daily routine, and how, in a moment, her words changed my world.
This woman was a successful writer, an author, in fact, with published work to her credit, but she was also a full-time mama, with children at home. In the interview, she said that early on, she had decided that if anyone was going to make the sacrifice for her writing career, it was going to be her, and not her family. So, she made a simple, yet profound decision: she would begin her writing day at 3:00 a.m. Three or four hours later, she would finish for the day in time to fall in with her family for breakfast and then be available to be mama for the rest of the day.
Her words shattered a barrier for me. I had always had an inkling toward writing, and had even entertained the idea of writing a book one day, but during the thick of the toddler and little kid years, I could only imagine that this would be possible when I was a grandmother! But, here was another mama showing me how I could do it now. It sounded incredible.
But how was I going to do that? You don’t just jump into rising at such an insane hour, do you? I wasn’t entirely sure if this would even work for me. Interestingly enough, soon after hearing that interview, while I was still in the middle of contemplating this scary/wonderful idea, and with no external aide whatsoever, I began waking up at 4:00 a.m. Bing! It was as if some invisible alarm had been set, and I couldn’t have turned it off if I’d tried. Wide awake. And ready to write.
Although this routine has ebbed and flowed with our lives over the years, the early morning hours have remained constant. I now regularly get up at 3:00 a.m.; some mornings earlier, some mornings a bit later. I’ve come to cherish this portion of my day – the darkness, the quiet, the opportunity to see what happens with that blank page in front of me. I love knowing that, though the rest of the day may turn upside down, I’ve already made something of it.
Please know that this is not a whoever-gets-up-earliest-wins-the-prize sort of thing. Goodness, no. I’ve simply found a way to do one of the things that I love, while being mama, too. I am and have always have been naturally a morning person, so this wasn’t an incredible stretch for me. The other side of this reality is that I go to bed around 8:00 or 8:30 p.m., and am asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. My family knows that I’ll probably fall asleep while watching a movie with them on a weekend night. If I make it through without nodding off, we all cheer!
And, speaking of cheering, it’s what I do when I read of other writers who do the same thing, and I flat out applaud for the ones who hit their creative stride in the very latest hours of the day.
Friends, let’s raise our mugs high. Here’s to a fresh new Monday, and to looking at our daily gift of twenty-four hours in a whole new way!
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