Morning Rev Up

I groaned as I rolled over in bed. The idea of facing another day was an ongoing struggle. I tried to think of something I looked forward to in the upcoming day. I would be all right once I was up and dressed; I knew I would.

The still empty pillow and tidy covers on the other side of the bed depressed me. The sore throat and cold that I had been trying to fight off was winning. And then there was the simple reality of an aging body that found it more wise to not move than to move. My Rheumatoid Arthritis was at its worst before the sun crossed the yardarm. I had a knot beneath my shoulder blade. Yes, mornings were hard.

Convincing myself that the day would be worth it required more and more ingenuity. I had tried one strategy that seemed to help. Instead of taking my coffee into my office and drinking it while sitting in my recliner in the den and watching the morning news on television, I had begun having breakfast in the sunny little solarium at the end of my kitchen. Visualizing myself sitting amidst all the plants, with my coffee and fruit, some classical music playing softly in the background, and the sun streaming down on me as I conquered the morning’s Wordle added an incentive.  Remembering how the warm water of the shower would ease some of my aching joints typically whipped up a little enthusiasm. Often, the thought that really motivated me to step into my closet and select clothes for the day, however, was my writing.  If I could just get dressed and get to my desk and forget about the world around me and lose myself in images of life in the past, a life that I was creating with words on my blank screen, I would surely be OK.

On this particular day, I put off the levitating process as long as I could. But I had a mid-morning appointment, and I needed time to prepare, so I slowly rolled to the edge of the bed and slung my legs over the side. A bad fall six weeks earlier was hampering my efforts even more than whatever I thought “usual” was. My feet found the Toms slippers, the pink ones with yellow fortune cookies that my daughter had given me. They were on the floor next to my nightstand, and, once in them, I shuffled slowly across the room to open the blinds. One advantage of living alone was that I didn’t have to worry about bothering people if I moaned.

Just as I got to the sliding doors to the courtyard on the other side of the room, across what seemed like the length of a football field, the alarm on my iPhone, way back on my nightstand went off. I had it programmed to awaken me with some song from my music library. It played softly at first, and then louder, increasing in volume the longer I ignored it. “Let it play,” I thought, as the sun began to pour into the room through the glass doors, “I’m not walking all the way across the room to shut it off and then back again to finish opening the blinds. Besides, no one can hear it.” The couple in the adjoining unit were in their 90s and hard of hearing.

The music got a little louder and I could hear the melody. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun!” sang Cyndy Lauper. I had to laugh! My feet started moving to the music, then my legs, hips, and finally, I straightened my shoulders, flung out my arms, and my Toms slippers became dancing shoes. I danced across the room, into the hallway, and back again, twirling and laughing. I danced around the bed. When I danced into the bathroom, I turned, laughed, and sang to the woman in the mirror, pretending I was singing to the camera.

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun!”

She laughed back.