I’m Breaking Up With Waking Up Early

I'm Breaking Up with waking up early

I’m breaking up with waking up early.

 

I have seen a lot of articles this year about waking up early, healthy habits, writers habits… and they all circle around waking up early, how to wake up early.

 

While I appreciate the knowledge in them, I don’t want to wake up early any more.

 

You see, for me, waking up early has become a sense of obligation. It’s what I do for my long commute to my day job. While I like the people I work with and get paid above average for it, it’s also not my end goal in working and earning money.

 

I’ve also been commuting 12-15 hours a week for.. I don’t even know anymore. 5 years? 10 years? That’s draining.

 

My morning routine consists of waking up early, sometimes showering (as in depending on if I showered the night before, not deciding to smell), sometimes eating breakfast (other times grabbing something to eat while I walk) and then racing off to my car to get to a train to get to work. It can take an hour and a half each way, what with allowing time to walk places and for traffic. All those little bits of time add up.

 

Why do you live so far away then? Well, frankly Brisbane sucks at transport. The city has grown where its infrastructure has not, and the government’s response is only to put the price of public transport up and build tunnels that are expensive and don’t reach predicted usage levels. My point in saying this is that while I have a crappy commute, I live in a beautiful beach side suburb. I have a great lifestyle despite the commute.

 

I’ve spoken to colleagues, friends and sometimes even strangers about their commute. Some people who live much, much closer to the city than I do still have commutes of up to an hour due to the sheer amount of traffic congestion. It makes little difference from what I can see.

 

All these years of this type of commute have left me with negative feelings towards getting up early.

 

I'm Breaking Up with waking up early

 

2015 has been very disjointed and difficult for me at times. But one thing I’m started to see in hindsight (bloody wonderful thing, hindsight) is this change within me about how I manage my sleeping and commuting. I’ve made slight adjustments to working hours and found a way that gives me time to actually sit down and eat breakfast at home.

 

That slight adjustment has had a flow-on effect in that I can sometimes now sleep in on weekends – and when I do that I don’t do what I used to which is run out of the house like a crazy person because it’s strange to be at home in the mornings, I take my time and try to move slowly, cooking a breakfast, eating it, sometimes even washing it up (I hate washing up).

 

All because I’m breaking up with waking up early.

 

I know I will come back to liking early mornings again. How? Because when I get up early for something that I like – from a small thing like visiting garage sales through to a big thing like an early morning flight for a weekend away – I feel the joy and no resistance at all to getting up early.

 

But for now – well, for now I’m breaking up with waking up early. It will come back to me when I need it.

 

Where do you sit on the waking up early spectrum?

 

16 Replies to “I’m Breaking Up With Waking Up Early”

  1. I work a rotating roster of days and nights. Days have me up pre 5 am and gone by 5:15- it’s horrible, to be honest! But changing it isn’t an option. Sigh!

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      I am very lucky in that it doesn’t really matter what time I start. I mean I start in the morning sometime but there’s a decent window of time I can vary between.

  2. That is great that you were able to change things a bit. I am not a morning person but constantly want to try because if I want to exercise I need to start doing it early as the temp warms up.

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      So many people exercise in my area as I’m trudging to work and I do kind of resent them a little! If I wanted to exercise before work I’d have to get up at about 5am. Too hard!

  3. Early mornings are not the done thing in this household. They used to be when I drove to Gatton each day for work but now we are all in sync with hubby’s night shift & 9:30-10am is normal. We have pretty much skipped winter this way too lol

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      Haha nice! I usually like winter because it’s so mild and an nice change from summer’s humidity but after a couple of month long chest infection at the start of this year, I cough instantly as soon as I get cold now, so I’ve had to use my heater a lot and avoid the outside basically all winter.

  4. LOL I am a total morning person and used to bounce out of bed before having kids. I kind of resent it now because the choice has been taken away from me think!

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      Damn choices!!

  5. I wish I had a say in what time I woke up but I don’t anymore! I was never a morning person but my body (and some mid life insomnia crisis) has a mind of its own nowadays and it appears I now am! I need to stop trying to get a bit of extra sleep and start taking advantage of this new early morning routine by actually using it to EXERCISE. Horror of horrors – yep – I’m considering early morning walks! 😉

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      I think that overall, I am naturally a morning person. Just not at this stage of my life 🙂

  6. I’d love to break up with waking up early… but alas I have a 10month old baby who thinks 6am is a perfectly acceptable time to wake up. I tend not to agree but I’m usually the loser in that battle.

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      Haha yep, that might be a battle that it’s better not to fight!

  7. If i can wake up early on my own terms and not be forced into it I am actually pretty happy. It is when I don’t want to get up, am woken by something or someone else that erks me.

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      Yep – travel and garage sales are my fun wake up early’s. Work…eh I don’t hate it but I’d like it a lot more if it didn’t take me so long to get there!

  8. For the past 3 years we have been spoilt – I work from home, hubster worked 5 minutes away, so we rose leisurely around 7.30 or 8 o’clock. He started a new job 3 weeks ago and DAMMIT has to leave at 7am so it’s back to early mornings for us! I probably brought it on myself by skiting in this post: http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/what-puts-the-good-in-mornings/

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      Oh what a nice couple of years! Leaving at 7am would ruin it all again 🙂

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