False Start

A Night to Make My Monday Look Good

So. This morning I awoke, decently rested. I lay in bed for a second, gathering my wits before rising. It was still dark out, as it tends to be when I get up, customarily between five-thirty and six. The sky was oddly murky. Was it supposed to rain today? I was about to get up when I glanced at my phone.

It was three-twenty.

This would not do. I had to will myself back to sleep. I have learned how to do this over time, largely because Charlie the dog, who sleeps curled up against me, is my jailer. Every time I move in bed- like when I reached for my phone- he growls. Not an aggressive growl, but an irritated one, the canine equivalent of c’mon, cut it out, and Charlie’s got me trained. I daren’t move a muscle, except to rub his belly. After a while, through my aforementioned conditioning and sheer boredom, I fell back to sleep, only to dream about being stuck in a towering metropolis that was literally falling down around me due to a combination terrorist attack and tornado. In the dream, I’d gotten separated from my family and was trying to make my way home without shoes.

I woke up for a second time. I glanced again at my phone. 5:45. Good enough. I slid out from beside growling Charlie to start my day. It’s Monday, and I have a whole crazy lot on my plate. But my running shoes are in sight, and Charlie has fallen back to sleep. Things are looking up.