My Daily Negotiations with My Alarm Clock.

Every evening, I am incredibly optimistic.

By the time I have brushed my teeth, washed my face and climbed into bed, I have convinced myself that waking up at 5a.m. is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

”Tomorrow, I will get up the first time my alarm goes off. I will have a quiet coffee, ease into the day and maybe even enjoy those peaceful early morning hours before heading to school for work”. That’s what I tell myself.

Night – time me is just adorable. Morning me, however, thinks I am an idiot.

At exactly 5 am, my alarm goes off. Not loudly. Not aggressively. It’s a wonderful soundtrack that plays. Motivational, one might say. But it’s enough to remind me that I made a series of questionable decisions the night before.

The room is dark, the birds haven’t even started arguing yet and I am fairly certain that the sun is still asleep. Yet, somehow, I am expected to be a functioning adult.

I don’t open my eyes. I simply launch my arm across the bedside table like a contestant on a game show and I find the snooze button. Victory! For example nine minutes…

Then… ”Good morning! You still have to go to work!”

And that’s how the negotiation begins. Five more minutes. Then five more minutes… And so on. It’s amazing how convincing those words sound at five in the morning, right?

By this point, I am mentally drafting a very reasonable resignation letter:

Dear School,
Unfortunately, my bed needs me more than the class does, today.
Kind regards,
Me.

The worst part is that I actually love my job. I love being a teacher. I enjoy seeing my students, playing with them, teaching them, having a good laugh…

What I don’t enjoy, though, is the tiny detail that all of this starts at an hour when most sensible people are still dreaming in their beds.

My duvet, on the other hand, has become remarkably persuasive. ”Stay’‘, it whispers. Even single morning, I forget all of this.

Around 9:30 pm, I am once again convinced that tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow, I will leap out of bed. Tomorrow, I will be one of those energetic morning people who greet the day with a smile. You know the ones. The people who have been to the gym before work. I assume they’re powered by something stronger than coffee…

Eventually, reality wins. I get out of bed, shuffle to the kitchen look like I have just survived a natural disaster and make the first coffee of the day. The first sip is magical, and the shower that follows is even more so!

Somewhere between that first coffee and greeting my students, I become a real person again. I start laughing, I start teaching, I forget that an hour earlier, I was considering a lifelong commitment to my pillow.

And that’s the funny thing about mornings. No matter how much I complain, I still set my alarm for 5 am every single night. Because tomorrow, there will be another classroom waiting, another lesson to teach and crafts to be done. And of course, the students who deserve a teacher that’s awake…

…or at least convincingly pretending to be.

Still.. if anyone ever invents a snooze button that lasts until Saturday, I’d be their first customer!