I can’t think of one good reason to sleep in. The idea of sleeping in makes me so uncomfortable my spine stiffens and I get a funny taste in my mouth.

I’m ashamed of this reaction. I have become one of those people – one of those overactive, overinvolved, overstimulated humans. Why else would I react in such a negative way to the idea of doing nothing on a beautiful, new, glorious early morning?

You see, if I sleep in, I don’t get my early morning walk with my dog along the waterfront, watching the fog swoop through the Golden Gate and swirl over Angel Island, pelicans diving in and out of the misty gray. On some mornings, this scene is what makes the day worth living.

The pulse of my blood, the stretch of my limbs, the smile on the golden’s wide mouth and the twirl of his happy tail. I would miss this if I slept in. As well as the warm sweet tea that my man delivers to me by 6:20 every weekday morning, with perfect milky foam and Earl Gray steaming into my olfactory senses. How could I miss this?

And then the ‘ting’ of the computer singing hello to me, the sweet greetings of East Coast friends and family who have been awake for three hours and already shared their thoughts and yearnings and news. I suppose that those messages would still be waiting for me if I slept in, but hours old. Old news.

Can I sleep in? Unfortunately many nights I can’t sleep past 3:30 a.m., much less 6 or 7 or, gasp, 8. When was the last time I ‘slept in’? Um, senior year of college? Noon, in my twin bed while my sleeping roommate slowing wakes up in her twin, dormitory noises outside the locked door, sun trying to peep through the gray blinds. Reliving out loud the crazy night before. Giggling, while struggling to not wake up.  But the door reverberates with knocks, “Get up you two, touch football on the green – girls are ahead of the boys, 6-2.” Roomie and I pop out of bed, vowing to never sleep in again and miss all the fun.

Sleeping in makes the day start too late. I’d miss the ‘me’ time, the delicate time between being in my own world, before joining the world of everyone else.

How about you?