I’ve been sleeping in a lot lately.

(Sleeping in is, of course, relative when you have kids under the age of TEENAGER because they are up at the crack of dawn to ask you for cereal and ask you to put cartoons on and to torment the pets and to fight with each other and to make messes and to tell you about their dreams and HOLY COW KID IT’S BARELY 7 AM)

Why not, right? Wife and I are working from home. Kids are schooling from home. And since we don’t have to drive in to work, getting ready for work doesn’t have to start until about twenty minutes later. And since we’re almost certainly not going to see our co-workers face-to-face, the getting ready itself doesn’t take as long. And since time in the larger sense is one big jello mold we’re all wading through in slow motion, the point of all this feels obscured, if not outright lost.

And, as these things tend to do, the effects compound and magnify each other, a snowball rolling downhill turning into a boulder and then an avalanche. Don’t have to get up quite so early so we sleep in a bit. And since we’re gonna sleep in a little bit, we stay up a little later. And since we’re gonna stay up a little later, why not let the kids stay up a little later? And those dishes in the sink? They’ll keep until tomorrow. And the laundry piling up? We’ll make it to the weekend. (Post-lockdown, the standard for “dirty” laundry might shift in ways some of us are not entirely comfortable with.)

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. There are certainly a lot of thinkpieces going around right now that tell you it’s okay to take a step back, to breathe, to relax. It may in fact be a good thing to let some things slide, hit the snooze button a few more times. Veg out. Wait till it’s over. And I can see some benefit to that.

But I also know that after a couple weeks of that, I feel like garbage. Not getting as much work done as I’d like. Letting the house be not just lived-in-messy but actually messy-messy — because why not? We (and by we I mean 85% the kids, 10% the pets, 10% me, and -5% my wife) are just gonna mess it up again before you can blink. And the work I’m not getting done, well, there’s certainly tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow).

So this morning I decided I was going to get up early again and get after it. Not even super-early — not chasing that 4:30 AM madness I’m on during the regular world of work — just 5:30. Woke up (ahead of the alarm actually; got to steal some of those elusive half-naps in the minutes before the sounding of the bell), got dressed, went for a run. Got back, took the dog out (for a bit of a walk, rather than just letting her into the backyard. You know, because I had some extra time). Did the dishes from last night. Sat down, did my morning pages. By that time, it was seven and the sprout was up — but I already had the drop on the day, and I was ready for him. Made his breakfast, got him settled. After all that, I still had an hour before I even had to think about starting the workday.

I feel good — like just, generally, not-really-sure-why, everything-might-just-be-okay good –for the first time in days if not weeks. I feel optimistic, energetic. I’m getting a few things done. (Heck, I’m here making a post when it’s been *QUARANTINE TIME HAS NO MEANING* days since I did that.) I can’t scientifically say that it’s all because I got out of bed early, but there’s certainly a correlation. A correlation worth investigating (again) tomorrow.

They say the little things make a big difference. I think we all know that, but sometimes it helps to get that little reminder.