6AM

6:00am at Foxhill Road, North Salt Lake

The blinds on my window were a joke. Even at eight years old I knew this. They weren’t wide enough to span the entire window frame, nor did the slats fold snug enough to keep the light from flowing through. While this was an annoyance every morning as the light pulled me from my sleep much earlier than I would have liked, I quickly learned that waking before everyone else in the house had its benefits.

I would creep down the hallway past my parents’ room and tiptoed down the stairs. Only the early morning wisps of light would show my path, but I knew the route well enough to walk it blindfolded. Down the first winding staircase, around the living room wall, and down the staircase set underneath the first. My prize sat in the shadowy basement resting on top of the green carpet, and there were no brothers to complain to mom that it was their turn five minutes after I got it. The Nintendo game cube sat in all its purple glory, unchallenged for the next two hours.

6:00am at Eagleridge Drive, North Salt Lake

We bought this house foreclosed and finished it ourselves before moving in. I was only twelve at the time, and it was only across town, but it still seemed like a very big change. All my family’s bedrooms were no longer on the same floor, and now my parents’ room was at the bottom of the upstairs. The window in my room still faced east, which wouldn’t have been a problem if the first pull of the blinds’ string had broken off the wheel inside of their box and permanently stuck them open. I tried closing my curtains, but the thin pink fabric only colored the light as it fell through my window. To add to his annoyance, there were flocks of chucker quails (the most annoying and ungraceful bird in existence; their calls sound like they’re choking on a rock with the repetitiveness of a car that won’t turn over) that lived on the roof next to my window and would make their weird chucking noises at the slightest rays of dawn. I always wanted to shoot them with by brother’s bb gun, but I couldn’t get the screen off my window.

Waking up early in this new house presented a new set of obstacles. With my parents’ bedroom door being next to the bottom of the stairs, I had to learn how to slip past even more silently. The three stairs at the end would creak when stepped on, and the railing hadn’t been properly attached and would screech if pushed, so walking with my feet between the railing’s rungs was the quietest option. After I got past that obstacle, it was a free shot to the basement where the newest game system was set up, the PlayStation three. My two older brothers’ rooms were all nicely blinded and curtained, so they’d be asleep another two or three hours, but my little brother now woke almost as early as I did. My little brother was much nicer than our other two because he didn’t mind playing multi-player work-together games instead of the shoot-‘em-up one players. This didn’t last long, though. He soon learned to mimic my older brothers.

6:00am at 400 West, Cedar City

I’m asleep when I can be for as long as I can be, like any sane college student would do. By slats covering my (eternally east facing) windows still don’t block enough light to be considered blinds, but now I’ve learned to wear a blindfold when I sleep. Earplugs were a recent addition to my sleeping attire because my roommates have no concept of a reasonable volume of voice nor any concept of ‘quiet-hours’ in the evenings. Late-night homework sessions have destroyed my early-rising habit, and I miss the peaceful silent mornings I once had to myself.

Video games have long since past as good motivation to wake up early, but I no longer have to compete for time to play them. I thank my younger self for our indecisiveness and keeping every dollar from birthday cards, Christmas cards, and straight-A’s awards in a jar on my desk. It sat unopened until I was twenty-one, and when I finally reopened the blue-painted jar and counted its contents, it totaled nine-hundred and fifty-one dollars not counting the clear jar of change next to it. The first (and only) thing I bought with it was a white Xbox One (the latest edition at the time) and put the remaining in my bank.