To Wake Up

I didn’t notice when waking up stopped feeling neutral.

It used to be a simple transition. Sleep. Light. Morning. Movement.

There was a softness to it once — a few suspended seconds between dreaming and doing. A quiet space before obligation stepped in.

At some point, though, I started waking up already tired.

Not physically, exactly. My body would still, for a few seconds, be heavy and warm beneath the sheets. But my mind — my mind was already racing.

Before my eyes opened fully, my thoughts were lined up like commuters waiting for the train.

Did I send that email?

What did she mean by that message?

I need to remember to call.

I forgot to finish that report.

I shouldn’t have said that yesterday.

There was no pause between sleep and responsibility. No blank space.

Just impact.

It felt as if I were waking up into the middle of something rather than the beginning of a new day. Like I had been running all night, even while asleep.

I told myself it was normal. Everyone is busy. Everyone has things to manage. Everyone juggles responsibilities. I wasn’t unique in that.

But stress has a way of disguising itself as competence.

I was functioning. I was productive. I was responsive. I was organized. From the outside, I looked capable, maybe even impressive.

Inside, I was constantly bracing.

My shoulders sat higher than they needed to. My jaw rested half-clenched. My stomach was tight for reasons I couldn’t clearly name. Even in silence, there was a hum beneath my thoughts — like a machine running somewhere in the background of my mind that I couldn’t turn off.

And the strange part was, nothing catastrophic had happened.

There was no crisis. No tragedy. No emergency.

Just accumulation.

Small pressures stacked on top of each other until I no longer remembered what relaxed felt like. Conversations, deadlines, expectations, comparisons — none of them dramatic on their own. But together, they formed a permanent low-grade tension.

I noticed it one evening while standing in the kitchen. I had just finished cooking dinner — something simple — and I realized I had no memory of actually preparing it. I couldn’t recall cutting the vegetables, or seasoning the food, or even placing the pot on the stove.

I had done it all.

But I hadn’t been there.

My body had moved through the motions while my mind rehearsed tomorrow.

That was the first moment I felt alarm.

Absence is quieter than panic. It doesn’t shake you. It erodes you.

I began paying attention to how often I existed one step ahead of my own life.

I would sit with someone while already anticipating how the conversation might end. I would answer emails while thinking about the next task. I would relax on the couch while feeling guilty for relaxing. I would scroll aimlessly while telling myself I should be doing something more productive.

Rest felt conditional.

If everything wasn’t done, I didn’t deserve stillness.

And “everything” was never done.

The turning point didn’t arrive dramatically. It was an ordinary morning — soft light filtering through the blinds — when I woke up and felt that immediate surge of mental noise again.

Only this time, instead of getting up instantly, I stayed still.

I didn’t grab my phone. I didn’t mentally reorganize my schedule. I just lay there and noticed the sensation in my chest.

It was tight.

Not sharp. Not painful. Just compressed.

As if my ribs had forgotten how to fully expand. As if I had been breathing shallowly for months without realizing it.

I placed a hand over my sternum and took one slow breath. Then another.

At first it felt artificial. Almost forced. My mind resisted the pause. It wanted to move, to organize, to prepare.

But gradually, something small shifted. The mental noise didn’t disappear, but it lost some of its urgency. It became background instead of command.

That was when I realized stress wasn’t only about workload.

It was about how much of myself I had placed on constant alert.

I lived as if something might go wrong at any second — socially, professionally, emotionally. I was always preparing. Always anticipating. Always correcting.

Equilibrium had become unfamiliar.

So I started experimenting with tiny acts of resistance.

I didn’t respond to messages immediately. I let some emails sit for an hour. I walked without headphones, even when silence felt uncomfortable. I ate a meal without multitasking. I allowed myself to finish one task completely before starting another.

At first, it felt irresponsible.

But over time, it felt like reclaiming territory.

Stress had slowly taken over the spaces between things — the in-between moments where quiet used to live.

And I had allowed it.

Waking up began to change.

Some mornings, not all, there was a fraction of calm before the mental queue formed. A thin window where I could notice the softness of the room, the weight of the blanket, the distant sound of traffic beginning.

That thin window felt fragile.

And precious.

I stopped asking myself how much I could handle.

I started asking how much was actually mine to carry.

There’s a difference between responsibility and self-imposed pressure.

I had been absorbing more than necessary — imagined expectations, unspoken comparisons, invisible deadlines I had created for myself.

And none of it was visible from the outside.

Now, when I wake up and feel that familiar surge of urgency, I don’t scold myself for it.

I acknowledge it.

I breathe through it.

I remind myself that productivity is not proof of worth. That calm is not laziness. That I am allowed to exist at a human pace.

Equilibrium doesn’t arrive all at once.

It arrives in moments.

A slower breath.

An unhurried breakfast.

A conversation where I’m fully present.

A decision not made from fear.

To wake up isn’t just about opening your eyes.

It’s about returning to yourself before the world starts asking for pieces of you.

And I am learning, slowly, that the most important thing I can do each morning isn’t to prepare for everything that might happen.

It’s to notice that I am here.

Before the noise.

Before the pressure.

Before the day convinces me otherwise.

Freedom.