I don't do mornings

I don't do mornings.  I may appear up and alert, but I am not.  I may smile and chirp, but don't disrupt the pattern because I am not nice.  I have tried to be a morning person.  I have, unsuccesfully I might add, scheduled a prebreakfast walk for myself at least every year since the summer I turned 13.  Now I get in a prebreakfast walk, but that's only because I don't eat breakfast and wait until after my kid gets on the bus.

But you see, I know God has a sense of humor because he gave me my in-laws, who are, in fact, quite wonderful people and I love them very much.

But they are much too active for me much too early in the morning.

My mother-in-law is one of those people who is blessed with energy.  The third day we were here, I walked out of the shower at 6:15 and she looked at me as though she was wondering how I had slept so much of the day away.  She rises regularly around 4:30 ,and though she cat naps, she rarely sleeps before 10:00, 10:30, or later.  And she never sits still.  No.  From the moment her head lifts from the pillow, she is moving.  I see my son in her.  A LOT.  I wonder what it was like to be her mother.  I'm not sure I would have been up to the task.

Until the other day, I thought she was the only one.  But the other morning, one of the other grandmothers in the town delivered apricots for my little son.  At 5:57. AM.  I don't do 5:57 AM. 

For as long as I can remember, I have been a night wanderer.  I randomly get up, walk around, read a book, and go back to sleep.  Perhaps it is jet lag now.  My oldest son told me the hotel in Japan was cursed because he was just so tired.  I told him the curse was jet lag.  He still thinks jet lag comes from Japan.  After all, that's where earthquakes are.  He learned it in school.  Perhaps it is jet lag.  But two weeks into the trip, I doubt it. 

More than likely it is simply the combination of weathering the storm, surviving the worry, and starting to work through it all.  Life doesn't go away becasue the scenery has changed.

Of course, then again, there is the whole up at 5:30 thing.

My repulsion to early morning activity is compounded by the fact that you're not supposed to eat before breakfast here.  And anyone who knows me very well knows that I run on hot tea.  Solid food I can go without, but hot caffeinated water with a little milk and a lot of teeth-staining tanins is requisite to my survival.  I thought I could be a missionary at one time, but one mission trip to the wilds of St. Augustine in accommodations without hot tea cured me of that idea.  It cured the religious leadership of that idea for me as well. I was so miserable that they made special arrangements for me to get into the kitchen for some extra tea.

I have limited patience in the morning, and I can sometimes bite my tongue.  But these virtues are absent in the pre-tea pre 7:00 AM morning.  I prayed the other night that I would be nice during breakfast and not say anything to anyone else that would hurt anyone's feelings.  I slept through breakfast.  Is God telling me I'm not capable of being nice?

Today, my mother-in-law went swimming early.  She said 6:00, but she was already gone when I finally took my shower at 5:40.  I had caught outside hanging the laundry at 5:10.  So I am up early to set out breakfast.  Thankfully, my father-in-law is VERY patient in the morning (and has a sense of humor as well).  We'll see how it goes.  Hopefully I won't do any permanent damage.