The alarm rings.
Before my eyes are fully open, my hand is already moving.
Not toward water.
Not toward the window.
Toward you.
One small screen.
One quick check.
Just to see what happened while I was asleep.
—
There is a quiet moment right after waking when the mind is still soft.
No plans have claimed it yet.
No messages have shaped it.
No comparisons have entered.
That moment used to belong to silence.
Now it belongs to whatever is waiting on the other side of the lock screen.
—
I tell myself it takes only a few seconds.
But those seconds set the tone for the next hour.
Someone else’s urgency becomes my first thought.
Someone else’s highlight becomes my first feeling.
Someone else’s day arrives before my own has even started.
—
What would happen if I waited ten minutes?
If I let the room stay quiet.
If I let my own thoughts arrive first.
Would the day feel different?
Or would I simply notice how automatic the reach has become?
—
The phone is not the problem.
The habit of offering it the first piece of my attention is.
That first piece is the one that shapes everything that follows.
—
Tomorrow morning, I will try to leave you on the table for a little longer.
Just long enough to remember what my own morning feels like before anyone else has entered it.
