I'm one of them. I'm one of those sunshiney people who gets up with the sun and goes for a walk, starting my day with exercise, outdoors and a smug feeling of superiority.
It's true. I'm that girl you see bouncing by, outside your window at 7:30 in the morning while you're still trying to figure out how you have pillow marks on your calves. I'm up, get a quick coffee into me, throw on some sweatpants and head out the door looking like someone who should probably still be asleep.
By 8:00 I've returned home, having walked 3 kilometres, my lungs filled with fresh air, my hands cupped around a hot cup of coffee, ready for the day knowing I am the sort of person other people are envious of. I am the sort of person other people aspire to be. I. Am. Morning. Person.
I've been on this routine for quite a long time.
2 days.
That makes me a Suzy Sunshine expert and therefore I have a lot of advice to impart on you - the bed dwellers, the late risers, the night owls and other immorals.
I was once you. 3 days ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I'd go to bed very late and get up moderately late. 8:30 or so. I was at my computer working by 8:45 and generally would stay there until I either had to pee, eat something, or kill a centipede. I'd maybe walk around my yard or sit on the porch for 15 minutes just to get outside then I'd be back at my computer writing and editing photos.
I'm not in the habit of using my walking desk during the summer and fall - it's more of a winter thing for me. So a lot of days I'm quite sluggish. Not my guts. My guts are just fine. I can throw down when it comes to that. I just don't move enough some days to even feel human. This leads to blogger bod and blogger brain.
The condition is easily recognized; if you feel like your body is made of cement trucks - you have the affliction.
rare shot of me in restful, elegant slumber. basically a Princess.
Therefore I've taken the drastic step of waking up and going for a walk early in the morning. Very early. Sunrise early. This is no small change of pace for someone who is regularly on speaking terms with 2:00 a.m.
I'm very very happy with my new routine and only plan to make a few minor tweaks.
- Go to bed earlier. Getting only 4 hours of sleep doesn't make you cooler, tougher or stronger. It makes you a deranged lunatic who has the focus of someone who just smoked 400 pounds of weed.
- Smoke weed. I think if I smoked weed I wouldn't have to go through all of this waking up early and walking business because so much of my time would be devoted to figuring out how to tie my shoelaces.
- Learn how to say Good Morning! I don't say that. It feels weird to me. Other morning walkers let that phrase roll off their tongue like nothing. I assume it's because they've had years of practice. I on the other hand am new to encountering people before lunchtime and what I usually reply with is a moderately frantic "My hair is normally brushed."
- Get out the door a little bit earlier. At my current time I'm forced to weave my way around school children on the streets and I would like to avoid this as I find them to be alarming in every way. They're very small, fast and unpredictable. Like centipedes in pants.
- Knock on people's doors so they can enjoy the fun of a morning walk too. I see nothing that could go wrong with doing that.
How has this waking up at an unGodly hour and walking for several kilometres routine changed my life over the course of 2 days? Well, I'm ready to go to bed earlier. By 2 in the afternoon. I've learned there are many many things you can do with your eyes closed because you don't have the energy or coordination to open them. Really the only good thing about it is I get to brag that I'm a morning person like so many morning people seem to do. But it's all a lie, I'm not a morning person, I'm masquerading as one. I'm fundamentally a vampire person. In my heart.
I've decided that I'll only do this morning thing during the week because even if I'm working on the weekend, I usually get a chance to go somewhere outside of the house like the garden or an antique market or auction. So I do have more of a chance to see the world and my beloved sun on the weekends.
Therefore Monday is my next scheduled get up and out day. That gives me two whole days between now and then to decide whether I can come up with a better plan to get me up and outside bright and early. I've toyed with the idea of secretly sleeping in a neighbour's car and just peering out their sunroof while they drive to work but more people than you'd think get angry when you break into their car even if it isn't to steal something. This is the level of political correctness our world is at right now. You can't even pop out of someone's backseat and ask them to stop at a breakfast burrito drive through.
Wish me luck on day 3 of my "get up and out" routine. Whatever it might be.
Have a good weekend!
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Lori Minch
My husband and I have been attending "boot camp" exercise classes at our local recreation center for about 2 years. Supposed to be three times a week, this summer we have slacked off. I (sort of) don't mind the exercise, love the results (lost weight, gained energy and strength), but, like you, I am not a morning person. The classes (the only ones available, FYI), start at 5:15 a.m. You read that right. I absolutely HATE getting up that early, getting dressed, and being pleasant. You know that saying about repeating an activity so many times and it becomes a habit? HA! Getting up and out that early is pure torture.
VINCENT SUN
Lots of your vampire friends sending replies way late at nite 😉
Lindy
Dear Karen, as someone who normally loves still reading at 3:30 a.m. all I can say about my chances as a morning walker, or you continuing, is Bwaahahahah. Bwahahahaha. Again, Bwahahaha just in case my point was lost, hehehe.
Yes, I will be out strolling the country road tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m....right beside you.
with affection,
Lindy (we are now on nickname parity in my mind)
Karen
I did it again! Basically I'm always exhausted and have developed an eye twitch. So it's going well. ~ karen!
Emily
I don't know if you figured this out yet, but having your coffee with or after food might help with the eye twitch, at least for me coffee makes me anxious and therefore twitchy only if fasting or I have a whole lot.
Emily
I enjoy being up until I start feeling threatened by the dawn reading, but the kindle light keeps the SO awake or close to it if he rolls over for a sleepy cuddle and I not too often have to be up before dawn.
So, it's really mostly a rare and treasured vacation or insomnia based luxury, unless I have been so enraptured by my historical romance or 1980s suspense/thriller that I have literally no conception of what time it is or how long I've actually been at it. It's so refreshing when I get to do it.
I feel really good knowing somebody else is like that.
I've always liked to read, particularly when there are no people to disappoint by your lack of attention and it gets quiet enough to lose all sense of self. When I was a child I was particularly avaricious and had so much free time, I would literally read for a day at a time, sometimes I miss that somewhere deep in my grey matter and going to the House of Thunder or Scotland at 4 am scratches the itch.
Bonnie
Dear Karen,
I used to like you, a lot. Then, you started eating Brussels sprouts. Now you are a morning person. I would have nothing against morning people if they didn’t feel so damned superior and make so much noise. And, if they weren’t so chipper in the morning. I hate when a MP barges how much she has done by the time I get up. Oh yeah! Well, I get a lot done after you go to sleep, but we Night People are not braggarts, and we don’t like Brussels sprouts.
Jody
I've just retired--literally--just yesterday. I need a new morning routine otherwise the entire morning will escape me and I will have done nothing. I like the idea of getting up and out and get the day started with some kind of movement.
Grammy
Weirdo.
Melissa
So freakin’ funny!!! You make me feel comfortable about my random bouts of self-improvement.
Thera
I have always been a morning person and now even more so since my car broke down and I wake up at 5 am to be at work by 8:20, which includes a 20 minute walk from where the closest bus stop is, but I generally love it!
Woniya
I would love to do this...buuuuuut I'm up at 3:30 am everyday in order to make my 2-3 hour commute to work where I teach a group of 240 high school kids 'till three and then make the 2-3 hour commute home after which I grade a shit ton of papers, and collapse into a heap by 9:00 pm in order to lather/rinse/repeat. Most nights I'm lucky to get 4-5 hours of sleep after grade-fest/phone call fest/response to parent email fest.
I see that there's another educator here who is up at 5:15...that person gets my world.
Ahhhh.....I'd love to say Good Morning! and run onward..see the sun rise etc...but I'm way too busy trying to avoid the heroine addicts, dudes peeing in the in-betweens on BART, and the scary spare changers or level up complete lunatics on the commute to manage to do a life where I could slowly get into the day. I adore you to the bones, but man, much as I wish I could adopt this, it just won't work in my 16 hour totally heart attack making work days. Dang it.
Kasia
I have to get up at 5:15 for work, leave the house at 6:15, and at work by 6:40. I’m an assistant principal at a high school (why in the world does school have to be soooo early?? I know, I know, so the kids leave the house before the parents...). I love to stay up late, but I just physically can’t anymore. Usually falling asleep by 9:00 (yeah, that’s 9 hours of sleep. Seems to be what my body needs though). I read a book a couple years ago about becoming your best self, reaching your potential, yada, yada. But it’s secret? Get up an hour earlier. Get up at 4:15 am?!? That seems so wrong to me. Can’t do it, just on principle.
Pam'a
Amen! Does anybody love it that school and work start so early? No. I think we are still the victims of cows. That is, life revolved around milking them twice a day, and the morning one happened when the cows were full, i.e., early. I say we pick a date and just move everything to an hour later. School and work can wait till nine with no ill effects.
Who's with me??!
Emily
I say we have a referendum, I think we'd win.