Mornings, Barbara-Style
My mornings don’t start with an alarm clock; they start when my Trazodone finally lets go of me. Some days that’s 9 a.m., some days it’s embarrassingly closer to 2 p.m.—and I hate those days because it feels like half my life got skipped in my sleep. I blame the meds… and also Tipper and Bethany. When my dog and cat are snuggled up against me, I’m basically a human burrito. It’s like being swaddled as a baby in a warm, heavy blanket—very hard to escape, even when I want to be productive.
The first thing I do, once I crack an eye open, is reach for my phone. I clear notifications, respond to texts, snapchats, WhatsApp and Messenger pings, and delete the flood of emails I don’t care about. While I’m doing that, I sip on coffee that my husband, Nathan, kindly brings to my bedside like the caffeine angel he is. The goal is simple: kill the morning “ick” in my mouth and wake my brain up enough to function while I mindlessly dick around on my phone.
Eventually my bladder stages a protest, and it becomes painfully (and desperately) obvious that if I don’t get up, there will be consequences—no one wants a peed-on bed. Before I move, though, I wake Miss Bethany with some gentle pets, then give Tipper her deserved scratches and belly rubs. Once everyone has been adored, I slowly roll out of bed. My body feels sluggish and tight, so I take my time, give myself a good stretch, and wait for everything to come back online.
From there, it’s the tiny rituals: I grab Tipper her “breakfast bone” and toss it on the bed like a prize, head to the bathroom to finally pee, then put in my contacts so I can actually see the world instead of a soft blur. I toss back my morning pills and then… honestly, it’s anyone’s guess. I might pick up my current book, start a load of laundry, check my calendar, or go pop into Nathan’s office to say hello while he’s working. I rarely eat early; my appetite usually doesn’t show up until 3–4 p.m., so my “breakfast” is often basically supper.
My ideal morning looks different. In my fantasy version of life, I wake up around 6:30 or 7 a.m., wander out to a sunny porch, and just sit in the morning light with coffee, soaking in the beauty around me before the day even begins. Then I’d shower (with actually hot water—because I hate being cold), get dressed, and move through my house like a woman on a mission: cleaning, organizing life, updating my website, writing blog posts, planning social events, and maybe scheduling uploads to Facebook or my very new, very secret OnlyFans. One day, maybe, I’ll be brave enough not to worry so much about conservative, well-meaning family and friends judging that part of me.
For now, my real mornings are a mix of meds, pets, coffee, slow starts, and trying again—over and over—to build a life that feels a little more like that sunny-porch version, even if I still wake up at noon sometimes.
