M. Suzanne Terry

(Photo Credit – Jennifer Upton – A Shared Lens)

Every morning, at precisely 5:03 a.m., my internal clock wakes me up.  This has been happening sporadically for about a year, but it has happened EVERY DAY for the last two weeks. It doesn’t seem to matter what time I go to bed.  I could crash at 10:30, or I can stay up reading until 2:00.  Still – 5:03.  On the dot.

I don’t know why my body has decided to betray me in such a way.  I don’t know why it’s angry with me or what I could have possibly done for it to think I deserve this treatment.  Et tu, body?

I have been ignoring it.  I have woken up, looked at my phone, seen the odious numbers 5:03, cursed vehemently, rolled over in a huff, and fallen right back to sleep.

Yet it keeps happening.

So I’m going to give in. You want to wake me up at 5:03 a.m., body?  FINE. We’ll see how you actually like getting up at that time.

My fear, of course, is that my body will like it.  I do not look forward to the few weeks it takes to adjust my falling-asleep time to the new, ungodly getting-up time. The next few weeks might be rough.

But once I do adjust (and please let it happen quickly), I foresee the following benefits:

1. I can have breakfast and wake up (read: start caffeinating) at home, where I can do so in private, instead of at work, where I must do so around other humans. People I work with – don’t worry – there will still be coffee at the desk in the morning.  In fact, this way, you might get more than one cup before I drain the pot.
2. I can do morning free writes leisurely, at my desk, instead of tapping away on Margeaux the iPhone, one eye still closed, in between alarm snoozes.
3. Morning reading time?  Yes, please.
4. Once I get used to it, I could start going to the gym again.  I am generally not a fan of the gym, but I am a fan of running.  Do you know what a good time of day to run outside in July in Texas is?  NEVER.  There’s not a good time.  It’s so hot.  You could die. So I can get up and go use the track (and maybe the weights, on days when I just flat out lose my mind and forget my personality, which is actually quite likely at 6:00 in the morning) at the gym.  Yes, I realize that the gym is open at other times of the day. But will I ever, ever go when I know that it’s full of 18-year-olds?  No.  No, I will not.  So 6:00 a.m. is my gym time, if I am to have a gym time at all.
5. I will be able to do all of these things and still get to work on time.

So I’m skeptical, but I’m willing to try, if for no other reason than it means I’ll only have to wake up once.