You know who I really can’t stand? People who wake up at 5am.
They don’t just wake up at 5am and live their merry little lives on their own
circadian rhythm. No, they wake up at 5am and crow about it to the whole world.
They get all sanctimonious about waking up at 5am. It makes them better than
everyone else, more productive, more worth their space on earth. Like 5am is
some morally superior time. They wake up at 5am and look down their noses at
everyone who wakes up after them, like it’s a race to wake up and they won! And
they stand on the tallest podium and put a little gold alarm clock around
their neck. You can’t help but wonder: if they ever got an adequate amount
of sleep, maybe they’d be nice, maybe a little normal, maybe someone you’d
actually want to be in a room with.
Listen, 5am-freakers, we all have 24 hours in a day and what
does it matter how we situate those in which we sleep and those in which we
are awake?
You know who’s cool? People who sleep in until 10am. They
won’t be in your face telling you “YOU SHOULD REALLY SLEEP UNTIL TEN!!! You are
so much more productive when you sleep until 10 because then you can get a lot
done at night. Only successful people sleep until ten.” You know what,
businesses are still open at 10am. The gym is still open at 10am. The bank is
still open at 10am. The internet is still open at 10am. The 10am-wakers wake up
and mind their own fucking business. Maybe they say, “I woke up at 10.” But
they certainly don’t get all up in your business barking about the virtues of
waking up when they wake up.
You know what happens when I wake up at 5am? I’m a fucking
bitch. Especially at 8:30pm when it’s time to get the kids to bed. I find it
really helps the kids sleep deep and rewarding sleeps if I’m super bitchy for
the all of 5 minutes I can stand of shuffling them off to their beds. And you
know what I’ve discovered? EVERYONE who wakes up at 5am is a fucking bitch.
Because why would they make it their business to tell the rest of the world
when to wake up? As Ram Dass says, you wake up when you wake up. And although
he’s speaking of enlightenment (whatever that even means), it’s the same with
any given day. You wake up when you wake up. You’ve got your circadian rhythm.
I’ve got mine.
You know what happens when I hear someone telling me to wake
up at 5am? I’m a fucking bitch. I used to hear things like “Real moms wake up
at 5am.” Real bitchy moms wake up at 5am,
Ms. Case-in-Point. Why would the time you wake up make you real or not
real? Make you a better person, a better mom? And you know what’s not being a
better person? Waking up at 5am and telling everyone that if they had any worth
or value they’d wake up at 5am too. They’d tell me that if you wake up at 5am,
you get time to yourself and can plan out your day and prepare everything
before the kids wake up. You know what happened when I tried that? My kids woke
up at 5:15am and everyone was a fucking mess by 6:30pm.
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| Blue face-palming over my inability to selfie |
You know when I
plan my day and prepare everything? The fucking night before. Because that’s
when I have the energy and the clearest mind. Why would planning my day 8 hours
before make me less of a mom? In fact, if the planning-of-the-day is the
race, then put me on the top podium and tie a gold spreadsheet around my neck because I kick your
ass every.damn.day.of.the.week. And it's not even like we have to get to work on time; we're stay-at-home moms. Home is always open. My kitchen doesn't have a time clock. No one is breathing down my neck about getting here on time. I can't be fired. Why act like I've got some asshole boss when I don't? Maybe you do, maybe you're your own boss and your boss is a fucking bitch. But mine's nice and well-rested. I'm not scared of her.
Just when I was out of the woods, when the other moms have finally
wound down their incessant mom-talk, have stopped preaching about 5 am, I now
am inundated by profession advice to wake up at 5am. REAL writers start at 5am! You know what would happen if I did that? I've get 1 1/2 hours of completely incomprehensible crap written before I had to get the kids up and take them to school and then I would need a long-ass nap.
I do wake up, voluntarily, at 5am as I keep a dream journal and that’s
often a time that I wake up, roll over and write on my notepad about my dream.
And half the time I can’t read it when I wake up later. And if I can, it doesn't make sense: “Not hearing the
sounds of breathing. The empty cartridge? Not his breath, not hers, but they
were weren’t they? I hear nothing and that can’t mean anything we are not
single use. Turn to see Open eyes… how much we have left,” scrawled over an
entire page in large, floppy “letters”. That’s what I fucking write at 5am.
Greatness, right there, right?!
I’ve also woken up at 5am too many times these last
few months, not just for dream entries but to shuttle Blue to her Ground Zero
Hour drama class. But you won’t hear me bragging about it. Au contraire.
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| Zinnia: dramatic death scene |
You know, I start to feel sorry for people that wake up at 5am.
People that wake up at 5am seem to be under a lot of pressure to prove their
worth and value and they seem to think that waking up at 5am and telling everyone they should too adds to their
worth and value. I’m calling all you 5am crowers out right now: you’re
insecure. That's okay, everyone's insecure sometimes. But please, for the love of sleep, keep me out of it. If you need to tell everyone else when to wake up and that that is the only way to obtain
the same worth and value 5am has brought to you, that’s just sad. Certainly, if
you enjoy waking up at 5am, if it suits you and your temperament, go for it. I
won’t stop you (unless we share a bedroom, then we will stop sharing a
bedroom). But how about you shut the fuck up about it. Back OFF. BACK WAAAY
OFF. Just go live your life, wake up, quietly, keep the lights low and keep it
to your own insecure little self. Maybe say, once in a while, “I wake up at 5am,”
but as a statement of fact, not a badge of superiority. And try to remember
that your worth and value as a person have nothing, whatsoever!, to do with the
time you wake up in the morning. It actually has nothing to do with anything
that you DO or don’t DO -- at any time of day. And try to remember that it’s
always 5am somewhere in the world and so, in a way, we ALL wake up at 5am,
bitches.
