Without Any Fail-Safes

Most days I wake up in a fog of confusion, but not today.

Today I woke up before my alarm. Usually, though, it's like my head lags with a flu-like spacey-ness, but without any of the weight or sinus pressure (thankfully). So waking up feeling that clear was... odd.

For years I had pretty bad sleep paralysis.

I'd wake up unable to move or speak, but my mind would be fully aware that it was awake and not dreaming. As a kid, I'd imagined that must be what it would be like to get anesthesia for surgery but still be fully aware of what was going on. Terrifying. When I was a sophomore in high school, I had shoulder surgery for the first time because of a football injury and was haunted by that fear going into it. I still don't like procedures where I have to get put under.

This morning, I was alert but not anxious. Clear. Where I usually have a few fail-safes in place to make sure I get up and stay up—like leaving my phone in the kitchen so I have to walk through the house turning on lights to get to my alarm and shut it off—today, I got up leisurely. I felt light and unbothered. There was no dread, no dark cloud, no perpetual background urgency or resentment. Weird. But also, cool? Honestly, it was so foreign I wondered what was wrong.

While waiting for my coffee to finish brewing, I played wordle and got it in three. After sitting down to read by the window, a theory had begun forming about the unnervingly clear start my day was having. Anne Lamott and her book Bird By Bird made me think of what I'd written for yesterday's column, the style I'd used, and about the nervousness I'd felt around publishing it. Coffee in hand, I sat there contemplating whether the act of simply naming all I'd been wrestling with had helped me to let go of it.

Could... could that be why I woke up with such ease? Did I actually process my way out of any lags or spacey-ness?

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Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
158/365

Do you investigate things that went well to find the actions that made them so? Or only when things go badly?

If you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along. And if something stuck with you while reading, I'd love to know what it was.

onward.

For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here.