Why I get up

     This doesn’t sound right, so bear with me until I explain it through. Prajna was gone for three days and two nights last week. I thought I could get along alright. I was just concerned that I might have trouble falling asleep at night. It turned out that I dropped right off both nights. It was the mornings that I wasn’t prepared for.

     Each evening I set the coffee pot to start brewing at 5:45 a.m. Next morning am usually up and about to hear it uttering its last gurgles as the smell of fresh coffee begins to creep through the front room. So what I’m saying is that most mornings, I am up at least by six in the morning, maybe before. Mondays I either write my blog or polish what I composed the previous day before posting it. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I write whatever my current project is. Right now I’m working on my memoir which I have gone on about quite a bit here already here. The other three days I get up early but don’t write and am over at Yucaipa Christian Church by 8:00 am either to work or because it’s Sunday.

     So Prajna was gone Tuesday and Wednesday morning last week. I woke up a little before 6 o’clock in the morning the way I always do, with no alarm clock. And both mornings I sighed and didn’t get up until after 7. The two mornings I woke up without Prajna next to me are the two mornings I stayed in bed. That really looks like when she’s not there I am content to lie there and when she’s in bed I just want to get out of there. That’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it really is about.

     When I realized that I was staying in bed, I felt I needed to examine why I did this. I knew it couldn’t be what it looked like. And it didn’t take a lot of contemplation to realize why I was staying in bed when she was gone. I love Prajna a lot. And knowing she is there is my motivation to strive to achieve.

     It’s like this: The easy thing to do is flip the pillow to the cool side and hit the internal snooze alarm. My brains can do astounding mathematics early in the morning and calculate how many minutes there are left to sleep. The difficult thing to do is shake off the blissful sleep and lift myself out of bed, and it isn’t even winter yet. Once I am writing I feel great, especially when the coffee starts to kick in. The transfer from horizontal to vertical can feel life-ending sometimes, but just about every morning I do it. Even on mornings I don’t write I get up. How and why? Because I have her in my life. And because I have Prajna in my life, what I do matters.

     This sounds a little codependent, finding my purpose in another person. And yes, it is a little. What would I do without her? Well, I’ve discovered the answer to that. I would stay in bed. I will try to keep this adoration healthy and not put my whole identity into another person and I will not demand or expect her to be my reason for being, or even writing. When it all comes down to it all, I write for myself. Having Prajna in my life is a blessing that makes me feel significant. Difficult things are worth doing.

     I am also blessed with the progress I have made on my memoir. It took several months and 24,775 words to get Naomi in Maui Memorial Hospital, she hasn’t been diagnosed yet. But I don’t regret any of this bloated first draft. I have made some astounding discoveries while writing it. I think that stepping back to look at one’s life will inevitably provide new insight. And insight is what led to this blog entry.

     So last week I didn’t write much. What I did write was feeble. I have 7 more weeks to work on my memoir before taking a break from it. I have another project in November that I plan to write every day of the month. I won’t go any more into that now. That’s not what this entry is about.

     I just wanted this to be about how a simple examination of my life revealed something that I wasn’t really aware of. Prajna is one of the reasons I feel I am able to accomplish things. For that I am grateful.