it's official

i believe i have definitely joined the ranks of "the old". if you are old and reading this, please understand, there is no animosity here. possibly a spirit of disillusioned resign, but no animosity.

the reason i think i'm officially in the old category now is based on one thing alone: my recent and new-found love for mornings. growing up, i would hear my grandmother talk about waking up the birds in the mornings and watching the sun rise. as a young teen with full ability to sleep 'til high noon, it baffled me. how on earth can you actually enjoy getting up early?! isn't your day wrecked? don't the bags under your eyes sag and darken? is it possible to act humane after getting up that early? i've never understood.

that is, until now. recent events and schedules have awakened in me the necessity to get my exercise in the mornings instead of in the evenings like i previously did. (i talk about it like it's a regular thing, but please don't be fooled. we're workin' on it.) the winter months were grueling. getting out of bed to step onto a cold floor, shuffling into exercise clothes, and then getting slammed with the rudely cold morning air was not always something that bred sanctification in me. but the summer months are amazing!

i get up with the sun. yep, i said it. up with the sun. the morning air isn't rude, but alive and somehow wispy. the birds are chirping like it's going out of style and the whole world is a shade of green that you don't see in the daytime. and the sky. wow! the thirty minutes that i spend outside under the morning sunrise are the most beautiful and special thirty minutes of the day.

i do have hope though. my parents and my in-laws talk of waking up before dark and not being able to go to back to sleep for some unknown reason. "kids, it's part of getting older" is the reason i hear most. i, however, can sleep 'til 11am very easily on saturdays and not feel any older. and, to give further hope, i spend the first five minutes of the day in a completely schizophrenic experience.

"you feel like trash. go back to sleep!"

"what, only to wake up to the alarm twice today? yeah right."

"thirty more minutes will make you feel better."

"have you ever fallen completely back into rem after waking up to the alarm? seriously."

"so this is worth it? c'mon."

"but remember how i felt yesterday after i got back? amazing!!"

"but look how you feel now."

and on and on and on for a good few minutes, and then i snap out of it (not because i take meds, mind you). walking outside in the mornings is like a secret garden experience, opening the door to the undisturbed world waiting for me. waking up with the rest of the earth is such an exhilarating gift. everyone i pass is peeling junk out of their eyes too. it's a great world at 6am in the summer.