I have never been much of a morning person. I guess I can attribute this to the fact that my Dad completely ruined mornings for me beginning at a very young age. Up until I turned sixteen and was given my first cell phone (which doubled as an alarm clock and additionally was supposed to prove my new-found responsibility), my Father would wake me up for school. A daily ritual that consisted of him flipping on the extremely bright and unforgiving lights above my head, ripping back my perfectly warm covers and yelling in a far too enthusiastic voice "GET UP SPARKY! ITS A NEW DAY!".
Surprisingly, the worst part of this early morning experience was not the brief moment of blindness I encountered when trying to adjust my eyes to the light nor the goosebumps I would immediately get with the absence of my duvet cover, but it was of course, the fact that my Dad was inherently early. With his watch set ahead of schedule at all times, he would wake me fifteen minutes earlier than needed. Every. Single. Day. Well i'm no mathematician, but fifteen minutes a day is equivalent to seventy-five minutes a week and that I mean, that really adds up. At the end of the month, I was losing approximately 300 minutes of precious sleep due to my Dad's inability to tell the correct time and believe me, I was not happy about it.
With the combination of such harsh movements, noises, and lights at such an early hour, it isn't hard to understand why no one wanted to sit by me on the school bus in the mornings, or why my mom to this day, still refuses to say one word to me until i've had a large cup of coffee and at least an hour to wake up. It also may explain the fact that during the weekends and my two days of sanity, I used to be able to sleep until noon or 1 pm, wasting away half of the day and probably subconsciously avoiding the morning and the bright lights all together.
Here, however, things are different. Blame it on the fact that I'm getting older and for some reason as we age we are all supposed to turn into morning people, or blame it on the fact that mornings here are still fresh and exciting to me, whatever the cause, it is happening.
I find myself actually enjoying the quiet mornings here on Hooker Street. I look forward to sitting in our sunroom, reading and watching the leaves fall. I love the way the sun reflects through our windows in the kitchen, giving off an incredible early morning glow and I am actually starting to be able to wake up after only one alarm and one press of the snooze button. Which is pretty good for me considering I used to hit snooze more times in one day than I hit the gym in an entire week. Yes, it is happening. I am turning into a morning person and the weirdest part of it all is... I don't necessarily hate it.
This past weekend was a wild one for those of us here on Hooker Street. With a Halloween party for the books, a crazy night downtown and a few too many costumes for one holiday, we did it big to say the least. Normally, I would have slept off my hangover and the flashbacks of dancing on stage, on the bar, and any surface in downtown Denver for that matter. But this weekend, I found myself anxious to get out of bed and begin each day. Whether the morning started with bloody mary's and french toast at a quaint cafe or large glasses of water and my homemade cheesy egg sandwiches in the comfort of our new house, the days started with a lot of laughter, a lot of recaping, and quite a bit of ambition.
It could have been the early morning light or the lingering levels of alcohol in our blood, whatever the case, it led us to pack our weekend days full of rugby games, exploration of new neighborhoods, and even the rash decision to paint our kitchen a straw yellow color during the midst of one of the worst hangovers i've had in a long time. Talk about a bold move.
Saturday morning as I picked up the pieces of the night before, finding half of my costume in the kitchen, the other half on my bedroom floor and the location of my right shoe still unknown, I glanced up at the clock and thought "That can't be right". It was nine am. I was fully functioning, holding real conversations, and I hadn't even had coffee yet.
Though age and the fact that I am turning into my parents more and more by the day, may play large roles in my new-found affection for mornings, I truly believe that this city is changing me. I look forward to mornings here because with each morning comes another chance to find a new favorite restaurant, a new friend, or to write a new story. I am liking waking up earlier here, I am enjoying my daily cup of coffee more, and although it is still sometimes hard to leave the warmth of my bed behind, I am okay with the fact that the minute hand of my watch, cell phone, and the clock in the kitchen are slowly but surely creeping toward that fifteen minute early mark. Because fifteen minutes earlier, means fifteen more minutes in a day and 300 more minutes in a month to explore the Mile-High City. And here, time is not to be wasted with your eyes closed.
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