Just Tase Me

I'm not sure "tase" is a verb. As in I tase, you tase, he tases. But if it is a verb, I would please like it and the Taser it rides in on to be applied to me at one, very specific, time of day.

I would like to be tased at or around 5AM every morning. Yes, I would like to be "neuromuscularly incapacitated" as a result of the application of an electrical current to some part of the surface area of my body at that wee hour. I believe this "stimulation" of my "sensory nerves" may be the only thing that wakes me up.

For the past decade - give or take - I've been trying to train my body and my personality into becoming a happy-and-productive-in-the-morning sort. I've set one alarm. I've set two alarms. I've laid out gym clothes. I've slept in gym clothes. I've gone to sleep earlier. I've refrained from caffeine. I've refrained from alcohol. I've internally pep-talked, externally pre-planned, and universally hoped.

Nothing works.

Maybe I'll get up on a Tuesday morning, make it to the gym as the doors open, get in a "workout" and go home for a leisurely shower and an organized presentation of breakfast. I'll wake my children with a time-cushion for their protests or their distractions or their interference. We'll exit the door humming, not hustling, and I won't swear under my breath - not even once. I'll sit down at my desk, fire up my computer, and think: "MAN, this is AWESOME!"

Because the hardest part of my day - the part where I want to do something for myself, by myself - will have been taken care of. Because I will feel like the most highly-evolved, highly-organized, highly-uncrazed version of myself. Because I will not have to ask myself the question "are both my children properly dressed today? Come to think of it, am I properly dressed today?"

But the very next Wednesday, the bed will feel so comfortable and the morning will threaten to be so cold and the day's to-do list will menace with so many undesirable tasks. And the only escape, the only respite, from the pending annoyances and forthcoming demands will be...sleep. Sweet, gentle sleep, where I escape to the black holes of temporary unconsciousness or the technicolor of stress-dreaming about lines I didn't memorize, tests I didn't study for, or airports I can't find.

I might carry anxiety into my REM-states, but even there I know, somewhere in my subconscious, that I get to escape. When I wake up, it will all go away. Not so in real life.

Several factors would indicate that I should be able to conquer this wake-up-early thing. One, I've wanted to do it forever, and I'm usually pretty good at following through with things I'd like to do....eventually. Two, I've tried to adopt all the tricks that seem to work for other people. Third, I should have some genetic predisposition towards this, given that 66% of my sisters and 100% of my mother are unquestionably morning people.

Those factors are doing nothing for me.

And so I continue in my world of scrambled mornings and sporadic gym attendance. Of improvised hairdos and an unchanging waistline. Of constant catch-up and continual self-lashings. Of renewed goals and repeated falling-shorts.

If you have a trick I haven't tried, please share. If you have a tendency you're also trying to tackle, please commiserate. If you have a Taser lying around unused, please advise what shipping and handling would be for an overnight package to Maine.

Image via thisiswhyimbroke.com.