Originally published November 2022.
I’m an early riser. This is not a casual statement like one you might exchange with a new friend while re-applying gloss in a restaurant bathroom. My eyes open at 5am without an alarm, that my friend is rising early. The only way I can sleep in is if I fly to a time zone in the future.
My natural proclivity for waking before the sun itself used to carry quite a bit of shame for me. Imagine perpetually being the child at sleepovers who woke up two full hours before the rest of the squad, thus relegated to lying still in a sleeping bag bored to weeps. There was always the option to join the parents of the house for their morning coffee, but that always felt a bit awkward.
The most frustrating part of naturally waking up early wasn’t actually the practical aspects of it, because my god the sunrises I’ve been lucky enough to see, but rather the popular opinion of it. I’ve always been, how do you say it…lame as fuck? Common sentiment is that sleeping in until half the day is wasted is “cool,” while popping out of bed before 7am to greet the day and…you know, accomplish things, is the very height of nerdery.
I know it doesn’t seem like much, but this shit stays with you. It becomes part of the fabric of your self-knowledge, and certainly your self-worth. If someone tells you that something natural about you is uncool, weird, or bad, you’re likely to believe it’s true especially if it’s been happening since you were a kid. Further, you’re likely to move through life with an understanding that there’s something about you that you need to apologize for.
As long as it involved ordering pizza with girlfriends falling asleep before Empire Records was over (oh, did I not mention my body knocks itself unconscious pretty goddamned early, too?) this was all very charming and relatively painless — if you don’t count childhood bullying and we can count that another time. Where being an early riser really started to become a (perceived) problem was when the sleepovers were more of the adult variety.
Scenario: There’s a dude, in my house, that not eight hours ago I had some sort of unmemorable sex with, and the self beliefs inside of my brain that I’d learned so long ago are screaming at me (silently in my head, of course) to not make a fucking sound.
I can’t wake the sleeping man! That’s so wrong! There is nothing worse than waking a sleeping person! Much less a sleeping person you’re sexually attracted to and would like to see again even though since I’d already slept with them the chances of them even saving my fucking phone number were slim to none. Don’t let him know this is when you naturally rise, don’t give him the impression you’re the least-cool human being walking the planet. Don’t wake him, how rude!
Never mind that I’d like to get to the farmer’s market or start a load of laundry so I don’t have to deal with it later or for heaven’s sake use the toilet in peace, my actions were instead led by the low self worth that prioritized someone else’s sleep over my fucking autonomy. So I tiptoed, around my own apartment that I paid for, to make sure that some guy could sleep undisturbed. If I was away from home, it was effortless to sneak out in the morning, entirely unnoticed by the sleeping mammal in his bedroom who cannot catch one wink of shuteye without four fans going. But I’ve always been much more comfortable “going back to my place,” so it was usually me, walking around my own apartment avoiding squeaky floorboards and hoping to hell the scent of my coffee wasn’t too strong.
Yeah, I want to scream at myself. I want to grab twenty and even thirtysomething me by the shoulders and tell her to do what she wants in her own home, even if that means risking the slumber of whatever man was willing to pay her a scrap of attention at the time. I want to tell her to never alter her day so that someone else can sleep until noon. I want to show her how to walk into her own bedroom with confidence and tell whoever is snoring in there that it’s time to go home.
The small version of me, the one who settled for crumbs of acceptance, affection, and approval, the one who didn’t want to wake a guy up because then what if he didn’t like her anymore, that girl is gone. But the one who stands in her place wouldn’t be as smart as she is now if she hadn’t experienced life exactly as it happened. That’s how I let go of the shame of how I used to behave, and that’s how those old behaviors stay gone. I remember what they taught me, and how those memories exist in the service of who I am now. I’m not ashamed of those memories, I am grateful for how they make me who I am.
It’s my house. I let someone in it. It’s my bed, I let someone in there, too. And if I care for someone else enough to do those deeply intimate things, I can also care for myself enough to behave like myself.
I don’t tiptoe anymore. I have plantar fasciitis and have to wear specific shoes at all times even around the house, and I don’t care if they make sounds on the hardwood. I don’t care if the sound of the fridge opening and closing stirs someone from a dream. I don’t hide my plans from other people, figuring their sleep (in my home) is more important than my day. I let them know that the expectation is we’re both up and out of the house by 9am so I can run my errands before the street fair I’d like to attend. If they’d like to go back to sleep at home and waste their weekend that’s their business. Am I going to blast 90s bitch rock at full volume in the morning? No, I’m not a monster. But I’m not going to be afraid of myself, stifling my movements and existing as little as possible so that those around me remain perpetually undisturbed.
I also don’t carry shame about rising early. It’s no longer a secret I hide from people. Instead of it being a flaw to apologize for, it’s now a quality of who I am that makes me an asset to myself. In the minds of the right people for me, I’m an asset to them, too. My life no longer centers hiding my shame. Instead it centers being authentically myself, celebrating the parts of me that feel good to me, regardless of how they look to other people. I’ve only seen a benefit to making this change, and I couldn’t have done it without asking myself why I was so intently focused on prioritizing other people.
Life is not only about “them.” The other, whoever else it is on your mind or in your life, they’re not the permanent priority. We’ve certainly been groomed to believe that “they” matter more than we matter in any given situation, learning that selflessness was an incredibly praise-worthy quality in a woman. But after a quarter of a century or so of making everyone but me important and having nothing but anxiety, depression, and low self worth to show for it, I started centering myself, and learning that it doesn’t make me selfish. It makes me healthy.
Whatever way you tiptoe around life, whatever way you center someone else’s comfort over your own so that they’ll continue to like you, know that you don’t have to keep doing it if it makes you feel low or small. Anyone we have to alter our authenticity for isn’t a person our lives genuinely benefit from. I would rather wake up (early) alone every day of my life than spend decades afraid to let a coffee mug make a sound when it hits the table.
It could be something different for you. Maybe you’re incredibly agreeable when making plans in a group, afraid to voice your own preferences lest it causes a disagreement. Have you never entertained the idea that others in the group might feel the same way you do? Maybe you’d be doing everyone a favor by being authentic, out loud. Do you always agree to the first date location suggested by the person you’re meeting, even if you don’t really want to go there? If the suggested date and time don’t work for you, do you inconvenience yourself anyway, afraid that one false move, or one move at all, will scare the person away like a frightened woodland creature? Do you take a middle brownie when you really want an edge piece? You don’t have to. You can do what you actually want to do, and live how you actually want to live. You will still be loved afterward. It might take time and practice to show yourself that the only people repelled by your worthiness and authenticity are those meant to leave your life, but the rewards of feeling calm and confident in who you are around the people you care about are well worth the effort.
It’s not about what will make someone else happy or comfortable or like you more. It’s about what makes you happy and comfortable, and then allowing the happiness, comfort, and ease that flow from those things to reflect the person you authentically are out into the world. That’s what feels good, deeply good. And in my opinion, the people who are drawn in by that joyful, content authenticity are worth sharing sunrises with.