4:30 a.m.

It's 4:30 a.m.

It's 4:30 a.m. and I am awake, on purpose, and it is still dark out.

I'm showering for the day and it's 4:35 and it's still dark out; lights are not an option, but a necessity. It's dark outside, and the sun won't rise and the sky won't lighten for another hour and a half and I am awake, but barely.

My eyes hurt: puffy, dry, a little bitter, and the hot shower water at 4:40 does not help.

Why am I so slow? I can't move fast at this time. I understand that I will be late, because the earlier I have to get up the slower I am, but I just can't get myself to move faster.

It is 4:45 and I am toweling myself off, swabbing myself gingerly like an open wound because I don't feel clean yet. It's like when I brush my teeth in the morning before I eat. My teeth do not feel clean, really clean, and at 4:45 a.m. in the dark I am not clean, even after the hot shower.

Yeah, tea. Oolong, lots of sugar. It's too dark and I'm too tired to bother with the coffeemaker.

It's nearly 5:00 now, and I am trying to come to terms with the morning, but I can't help but feel like it's actually 5:00 p.m., which throws things off even more, and the tea isn't helping and it feels wrong to be putting on dress pants this early. My legs are actually a little pissed off, wanting not wool blend pants but a pair of shorts and some well-worn sheets. I don't bother with makeup.

My coworker will be here soon; time to kick it up. I am now moving in normal speed, not in slow-mo. Lights in the driveway, I walk down the stairs and attempt a trot to the kitchen to grab a muffin. It is 5:20 a.m. and I am out the door, it is still dark out, and the base of my skull feels numb. I think of my grandma, who regularly gets up at 3:30 a.m. This is wrong on many levels to me, the most wrong being that it is just too damn dark out at 3:30 a.m., and still too dark out as I run halfheartedly to the car and hop in.