February’s monthly micro

Once a month I post a micro story (a story that is 1,000 words or less). Words are my own. Read and enjoy but don’t copy and pass off as your own.

I have become a morning person, shaking off the late slumber of my adolescence. 8 AM is my personal favorite: the sun gets itself in position. Everything is quiet. The motors of my brain can slowly churn. Even better on a weekday, when everyone’s going and I’m staying. Nothing punctuating the air, save for the occasional swoosh of passing wheels, soar of the day’s airplane, gallop of the passing train, light murmur of passersby, cooing of winged friends.

The breeze seeps in through the window opening to cradle my face, the sunlight that makes the window pane glitter like the sea wakes up my skin. Today can be what I want it to be. All these hours subject to my intentions.

It is not so if I awaken closer to noon. A sense of regret washes over for the loss of time, an urgency to make up for it yet also a resigned acceptance that the day is almost over. As a teen, I had a simple agenda: make up for lost sleep, relax with friends or alone, do any homework that was put off. I got by with this. But when I decided I wanted to thrive and not just get by, I learned that I needed more to function optimally. And that required more time. The afternoon is too late, demands for attention bubbling over.. Night owling no longer has the appeal it once did, exhaustion overruling all else, staying up past midnight a mental workout.

Truly, the morning is my time before the world pulls me in.