Day Seven: Waking Up

Going to sleep is better, but as waking up has become a habit of late; I suppose that appreciating how very wondrous it is could lead to less resentment and more gratitude. 

I used to think the frequent wakings at the end of pregnancy were to ready us to wake up with our precious baby later. Not that it takes a whole lot of training to hear the cries of one's newborn, they have a set of lungs on them, those babes. 

Then, it would follow, that this learning to function (barely) in a highly sleep-deprived state must be preparing a mother for...no, nothing makes any logical sense, never mind. And then you hit "middle life" and the regularity with which nights are interrupted is exactly like being pregnant or having a newborn all over again. Except there is only oneself to nurture at that hour, perhaps that is the power in it; finally, time to be alone with just you and the world, in silence.

Later, once it is sometime past 5 a.m., waking to a new day remains one of the great renewing graces of life. I may not feel refreshed, but I feel the pure possibility of every single chance that this sunrise and this day might bring.