I woke up ‘too early’ this morning, having stayed up late into the night with my traveling partner, merrily enjoying each other’s good company without looking at the clock. I woke up in good spirits, although a tad frustrated not to sleep in a bit later – 5 hours isn’t quite enough sleep for me. I was pleased my traveling partner continued to sleep.

It’s a practical rule of life that things will go wrong at the least convenient time (thanks, Murphy!), and so it was this morning; the carbon monoxide detector detected that its battery was low and squeaked out an irritating, strident chirp that could not possibly be over-looked – or slept through. Damn it. My first thought was ‘wtf?’ followed by ‘what size battery does that take?’ and ‘can I get that swapped out before my partner wakes up?’. The questions weren’t hard, and the answers were obvious. My partner considered going back to bed… but… morning. Double damn it. What a crappy way to be jerked from a sound sleep!

I really enjoy my partner’s company over morning coffee and a little conversation – we generally do that when I am on my second coffee, well-awake, and comfortably able to maintain continuous consideration and awareness of the needs and space of others. That takes me about an hour to 90 minutes from when I initially wake. I’m more than a little irritable, stiff, clumsy, and emotional first thing on waking. He wakes up much faster, but is also (surprise!) quite human, with his own needs and experience, and he’s frankly often not fit for company until he’s been awake half an hour or so. Our mutual desire to be in each other’s company is, by itself, sometimes insufficient to overcome the less beautiful useful tender qualities of our humanity. lol We were ‘up together’ – which isn’t ideal for the two of us. It’s a good opportunity to practice practices that need interactions… practices like gentle boundary setting, clear communication, and avoiding unpredictable emotional volatility with mindful awareness – and The Big 5. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to practice not taking shit personally; we are each very human, each having our own experience – and we love each other. That’s the important part to keep in mind while we’re so busy being very human. lol 🙂

Time for that second cup of coffee… 🙂

It’s a pleasant morning, and we’ve given each other the time and a bit of space to get our individual shit together. Today is a good day to enjoy love… so I’m thinking I’ll go do that. It’s more than enough. 🙂