Reasons to Get Out of Bed

I look forward to getting up in the morning. It’s not that my bed isn’t comfortable or that Tom’s old feet aren’t warm and bony. It’s that I have so much to get out of bed for! So what actually goes through my head when I eagerly flip back the covers and leap to my feet (okay, the flipping and leaping are an exaggeration), even on the weekends?

Simply, I have the following incentives:

1) Two cats who depend on me for life itself—or at least their frantic meowing would lead a neighbor with the ASPCA on speed dial to believe so.

2) A cup of International Coffee’s Hazelnut Belgian Café (the poor man’s Starbucks) in one of the perfectly-sized-and-shaped snowman cups we got from Casey’s mother for Christmas one year (and yes, it’s okay to use a snowman cup in July—we’ve had this discussion before, thank you very much).

3) The crossword and jumble puzzles in the Fargo Forum, completed using a Micro 207 Uniball Signo pen.

4) The anticipation of my two-to-four-a-day (miles, not cigars) habit.

5) Fear of failure.

6) That edgy feeling that this just might be the day ( don’t ask me what it’s the day of and don’t ask me if it’s dread or anticipation . . . it’s just the edgy feeling).

So don’t scoff at what you don’t understand. If your biological innards don’t catapult you out of bed at 5 or 6 a.m. every day, you will never know what you’re missing. It’s a beautiful, quiet (after the cats are fed), reflective time of the day, when things haven’t started to go wrong yet. The promise is still there, and the people who love to get in your face are still fast asleep, storing up energy to sabotage your day. By beating them up by an hour or two doing the things you love, you start out the day at least a touchdown ahead. (4/19/08)