If one isn't in the best way -- I mean, not that they're coming to pieces, but let's suffice it to say they aren't in the best way -- then they long for respite of any kind. They long for a means to quiet the pain and they are liable to participate in any manner of healthy or unhealthy activities to do so. Then again, there are some natural processes that seem to lighten the load, namely sleep.

The problem is, it only alleviates while it remains extant. So, when you wake up, everything returns. For me, it feels as if it returns with greater ferocity. It's almost as if it has built up over night and spilled over come daytime.

(It should be noted here that I will like writing this post better if you consider it a hypothetical situation).

So mornings are difficult. Mornings can really debilitate a fellow who isn't in the best way. Mornings take a while to wear off into normal sorrow or pain.

Still, I am convicted by the idea that we can decide what our mornings will be like regardless of our mental or emotional state, barring all present circumstance.

That said, I've been experimenting with mornings. How can I make that theory a practical reality? How can I fight back?

I asked the question: what is causing this? What are my thought processes and how can I combat them or deflect them? Or perhaps it's merely a matter of sensory awakenings. I must treat my understandably mushy physical reality to small kindnesses.

My first instinct was to court inspiration. I left messages to myself. I wrote on pieces of paper by the coffee table near the couch where I sleep and I penned a message in Sharpie on my bottle of shampoo in the shower. I named my alarm an inspiring quote. I aimed to let the words witness to my well-being.

This did not work. It did not come close to working. It was almost laughable and the laughter mixed in with my melancholy almost spoiled laughter for me.

One morning I chose three beverages I've never tried before and sat them at the foot of my bed. Upon waking I immediately took a drink from three of them. It did not work, and I will never drink cranberry Sierra Mist again.

I experimented with songs, images, invited and formulaic text messages, confrontation, pleasure, and pain. Nothing seems to be able to treat a morning.

I was sharing my experiments with some friends one afternoon and a close brother of mine suggested a peculiar idea.

"Get an apple. Wake up early. Walk around campus with that apple; eating that apple. It's impossible to be upset about anything while eating an apple."

So I did. I realized it wasn't working, but then he sent me a picture message on my phone of his own apple and his own morning walk.

Apples don't work. Morning walks don't work. But people rising to the occasion; inhabiting that dark morning with you...

That works. Works every time.