I HAVE REACHED AN IMPASSE (with a ham sammich)
I started the day with a single eye open from my all too comfortable bed. The comforter was upside-down, smooth fabric side facing outward and my legs rubbed up against the rougher textures of the heavier fabric. Still, it was warm and tempting to remain in its artificial womb. The alarm clock glared at me as if to declare war. I raised the white flag in surrender and negotiated a treaty. We had reached a peaceful accord, I'd spend the next half hour making my internet rounds and be roused from my state of slumber.
It was 5:30 AM and as usual the subconscious hand-smacks on the snooze button had done their damage. I had wanted to wake up at 5:00 to catch up on some work, but that would have to wait. Scheduling was something I had never learned in school. So much time was spent under the control of someone other person's whim, their timetable. Combined with a healthy love of procrastination, this was a recipe for disaster. It was a veritable breeding ground for laziness.
I had half of a ham sandwich in the fridge from the night before. It called out to me from the fridge and I answered it with a hoarse reply from a gravelly throat. "Needs hot sauce." As I ate it, I came to the sudden realization that I hated living alone. Though if I lived with someone, would I change my lifestyle? Would I be ashamed to wake up next to them only to grab the laptop sitting at the side of the bed? Would I try to let them sleep and get out of bed promptly to avoid having to subject them to 30 minutes of snooze button abuse? Would it be worth it to change these habits?
I remembered what it was like to have someone share my bed on a day-to-day basis. I remembered the feel of their heel across my shin and the quick rotation to face back-to-back, the slight shift of the bed as their weight displaced one side of the mattress. There was a sense of gravity to things. Would I ever find someone who would lie perfectly still so as not to wake me? Would the next person I'd share a bed with shift closer to me to let me know she was there, content and reassuring? The person you wake up to is sometimes different from the person you went to bed with. I felt that there was something to that statement more significant than a one-liner response. It may very well speak to the character of a person.
I started the day with a single eye open from my all too comfortable bed. The comforter was upside-down, smooth fabric side facing outward and my legs rubbed up against the rougher textures of the heavier fabric. Still, it was warm and tempting to remain in its artificial womb. The alarm clock glared at me as if to declare war. I raised the white flag in surrender and negotiated a treaty. We had reached a peaceful accord, I'd spend the next half hour making my internet rounds and be roused from my state of slumber.
It was 5:30 AM and as usual the subconscious hand-smacks on the snooze button had done their damage. I had wanted to wake up at 5:00 to catch up on some work, but that would have to wait. Scheduling was something I had never learned in school. So much time was spent under the control of someone other person's whim, their timetable. Combined with a healthy love of procrastination, this was a recipe for disaster. It was a veritable breeding ground for laziness.
I had half of a ham sandwich in the fridge from the night before. It called out to me from the fridge and I answered it with a hoarse reply from a gravelly throat. "Needs hot sauce." As I ate it, I came to the sudden realization that I hated living alone. Though if I lived with someone, would I change my lifestyle? Would I be ashamed to wake up next to them only to grab the laptop sitting at the side of the bed? Would I try to let them sleep and get out of bed promptly to avoid having to subject them to 30 minutes of snooze button abuse? Would it be worth it to change these habits?
I remembered what it was like to have someone share my bed on a day-to-day basis. I remembered the feel of their heel across my shin and the quick rotation to face back-to-back, the slight shift of the bed as their weight displaced one side of the mattress. There was a sense of gravity to things. Would I ever find someone who would lie perfectly still so as not to wake me? Would the next person I'd share a bed with shift closer to me to let me know she was there, content and reassuring? The person you wake up to is sometimes different from the person you went to bed with. I felt that there was something to that statement more significant than a one-liner response. It may very well speak to the character of a person.