Dearest Rachel –
Although compared to you, almost anyone could be considered a morning person (especially if one has a nine-to-five – or rather, a seven-thirty-to-five-thirty – job to go to), I never tended to think of myself as such. I mean, it’s not as if I wanted to get up at five in the morning every weekday, it’s just what I felt I had to do in order to get myself presentable for the office, including getting in my morning reading (since at any other time, I would want to be spending it with you and Daniel, and wouldn’t be able to focus on it as well).
I let myself be placed in that category, but insisted that it was only because of necessity – and the fact that the alternative category, that of ‘night owl,’ definitely didn’t fit me. You and I both knew I could never keep up with you at that. Heck, often times, you couldn’t keep up with yourself – I can’t count the number of nights you fell asleep on the couch while we were hanging out, only to insist you were wide awake and still wanting to keep going whenever I’d nudge you and suggest that we both ought to retire for the night. I don’t know what compelled you to constantly calling a lid for the day, honey, and I guess that now, I never will.
Regardless of whether you were able to admit you’d had enough for one day (and night), I would generally head off at around ten-thirty, so that I could get enough sleep between then and five or so. It had gotten so ingrained in me that I could rarely stay up past midnight even on weekends. But while I was more than willing to admit I was never a night owl, I didn’t think of myself as a morning person, either. That status was merely a byproduct of the external schedule I had to keep, whether I really wanted to or not.
These days, of course, I don’t have those requirements to deal with. I don’t (generally) need to be somewhere so early, so I don’t need to be awake. Theoretically, I don’t need to go to bed so early, either – although between the force of habit and not having any particular reason to stay up, I find myself sticking to roughly the same schedule as I used to as far as when I would call it a night.
So I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised to grab my phone when I wake up and see – much to my disgust – a time of not quite even six in the morning staring back at me. And yet, I can’t seem to help being a little irritated; I should still be able to roll over and go back to sleep, right? Nope.
Maybe I need to admit it; I really am a morning person, after all.
Although… this didn’t seem to be an issue a few months ago. Maybe it’s just that I’m affected by the sunlight outside. It is seeping into our old bedroom from three out of four directions (and the shades really don’t offer a lot of protection against it – although if they did, the room would be so terribly gloomy all the time, so it’s probably just as well), so there’s no escape for me from it. I could probably get a little more sleep if I were to wear a mask overnight, but at this point, there’s really nothing for it, so I just get up and prepare to start the day.
Considering that you would have barely gotten to bed an hour or two ago, I’m used to walking around in a silent room like this. I remember how you would occasionally refer to your morning self as ‘Elsie Marley,’ in reference to the old nursery rhyme, but the self-deprecation wasn’t enough to get you to change your ways (although in fairness, it’s not as if we had swine to feed). As a result, having to move about in a quiet space – and to keep quiet myself – is a habit I still maintain to this day, despite no longer having to worry about waking anyone up with whatever it is I might be doing. Which makes sense; apart from the act of showering (with the noise of flowing water hitting the floor), there isn’t much about my routine that requires making noise. Any conversations I would have with myself (before or after your departure) would be indications of a mental collapse, and thus to be suppressed. So, a silent morning remains the order of the day.
And yet, it still gnaws at me from time to time. Back in college, I would have my stereo going in order to key myself up for the day (at least, assuming whatever roommate I had that year wasn’t around to be subjected to it; I wasn’t a complete monster). I’d even do that from time to time if you needed to be woken up at a certain time when I was still around, particularly on Sunday mornings, when we had to be a church at a relatively early hour.
So why don’t I still do that any more?
I honestly don’t know. Maybe it’s that I’m still aware that there are other people in the house – Daniel in the family room, and Logan in his room upstairs – and feel the need to still be as quiet as if you (or someone) was lying next to me. It’s probably more caution than I need to exercise, but there you go.
***
I sometimes wonder if this habit of writing you like this is a way to make up for the silence of my life, especially my mornings. You know that I tend to write most of these early in the day, so that if I become preoccupied or distracted later on, at least you’ll have heard from me already. Of course, that means you don’t always get my instant-it-happened take on things, but most days don’t really require that. The thing about the morning is that, here I am, doing the best I can to ‘talk’ with you. Is it possible that I’m doing that to make up for all that silence? Is this my way to cope with the lack of contact?
For what it’s worth, I do feel like, when I’m asked a question (you know, the usual ‘how are you’ pleasantries, among others), I do a lot more talking than I used to; is it possible that I’m compensating for all the silence in my life? I’ve just been contacted by another girl on Skype, and while I know I should be careful about unsolicited contact (I did run her picture through the Google image finder, and it came back with nothing, so there’s a better chance than most that she’s legitimate), I find myself answering her questions with virtual essays, not unlike the letters I’ve been writing you. I mean, it could be because of these letters, where I have my thoughts already sorted out to an extent that most people don’t, but it seems like an awful lot to drop on someone who just asked a simple question.
Then again, she did ask. Well, we’ll see what comes of it.
Until then, I suppose I should ask you to keep your eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it. Oh, and if you would choose to make a little noise from time to time, I won’t complain. Just let me know it’s you, if you can.
Letters to Rachel 