I am not a good morning person. Never have been. The transition from sleep to wake is a bumpy road at best. I need a solid eight hours of sleep and nobody talking to me for at least 20 minutes. This is part of the reason why I now have my own coffee brand. So delicious and comforting. I find my morning cup of coffee to be nothing short of a warm hug welcoming me to the new day.
It’s like I’ve got two personalities everyday for about an hour. Morning Me and Awake Me. This little fact has proven to be an issue at times in my marriage, as my husband is what I would consider an aggressive morning person.
And I mean that in the most wholehearted way possible. So much so, that it has the power to make me angry. As soon as that alarm goes off, regardless of what time in the morning that it’s set for, he is awake and chattering on like it’s the middle of the day. Mister ray of damn sunshine himself. Sharing funny memes and reels and telling me every detail of his dream from the night before.
What the actual hell? How? How is this possible?
It apparently runs in his family. His mother was like that. She could go from sound asleep to debating world hunger in a flash. There were times when she would power nap sitting there at family gatherings and then just rejoin the conversation without missing a beat once she popped her eyes back open. As if she hadn’t just been sawing logs upright in her chair for the previous half an hour. His uncle also has this condition. We had the pleasure of him living with us for a couple of years. He is an absolute joy and I love him dearly, but his morning chipperness grated on my nerves like no other.
As the first person awake every morning, he would sit on the couch quietly watching the news, until I made my way downstairs to get my morning cup of heaven, and then he’d seize the opportunity to pounce. I would get a full recap of what he had seen on the tv, followed up with what his plans were for the day and a speed round of questions that needed answering as soon as possible, all before my first cup of brew had finished brewing. It got to the point after the first few months of him being with us that I would tip toe down the stairs in the hopes of him not hearing me making my way down.
Ever so quietly, I would slink down to the kitchen, memorizing any spots on the floor that would potentially creak if stepped on and give away my location. I’d hold my breath and lean into the corner, trying to make myself as small as possible while ever so gently opening the cupboard for mugs. Only then to fire up my espresso machine and start grinding beans.
Pointless effort honestly with how loud my coffee making process is. But, there were those couple of times that he had dozed off and slept right through it all. Morning Me felt like it was totally worth it. Awake Me felt like a total lowlife for trying to find a way to avoid morning conversation with one of the kindest men I’ve met in my life. Now that he is no longer staying with us I miss him terribly…after I’ve had my coffee…and 20 minutes of quiet…at some point mid-morning.
And, unless my husband is feeling a little extra cantankerous and decides it would be funny to mess with me, things typically go quite smoothly. In spite of my morning grumpiness and irritability, I have brought my husband his coffee in bed everyday for nearly our entire marriage.
It’s a peace offering of sorts.
“Here’s your coffee in bed, now shut up and leave me alone for twenty minutes while Awake Me tries to find her way out.”
It’s a give and take really. He takes my crap for the first 20 minutes of the day, and I take his for the remainder. Thank goodness he gets me at this point and doesn’t judge me for jerk I am when I wake up.
