I’m not the kind of person who gets up the minute my alarm clock goes off, never was and never will be. Unless I have a very good reason to get up you can be 100% sure I’ll be hitting that snooze button at least five times. After the fifth buzz, I finally holster myself up in my warm, groggy mess of a bed and rub my eyes while the sunshine peeking through my window wakes up my body. After that I’ll slowly and very carefully place my feet on the ground, like a child stepping on grass for the first time, stretch out my muscles and wake up the physical part of me. I do this all very slowly and calmly, like a ritual of sorts, so I don’t have to rush through my morning and freak out about missing my morning class. I then proceed to the coffee maker, wake up my brain with a big cup of water and then I open the fridge and decide what I’ll have for breakfast.

Again, my ritual continues, I sit down will all my fruit, yogurt, granola and toast and the put them all together like a star chef preparing their specialty dish. I take my time, open a magazine or scroll through news apps and update myself on what’s happening around the world. Most of my friends think I’m insane to wake up earlier just to eat breakfast when, even though it is the most important meal of the day, it would make more sense to just sleep through the alarm and enjoy those five more minutes in bed. However, having breakfast in the morning is not only something I do just because I wake up starving most days, but because its how I get my day started.

The whole reason why I like to take my time in the morning and eat a hearty breakfast is because of my parents. Back when I still lived at home, every morning we used to sit down with this huge breakfast table and eat, all of us still a little sleep deprived and overly hungry. We’d eat in silence, but together. It was a family bonding moment just as much as having dinner together, my dad would be reading the newspaper and separate the cartoons page just so I’d also have something to read. That right there was my waking up. In between my coffee and my last bite of toast my eyes would slowly adjust to the morning light, the dizziness in my head would slowly go away and moving my limbs around became easier. Doing that for 18 years will eventually make it into a habit, so even now in college I still maintain that routine.

I eat in silence, alone, but I get to wake up. Every little task leading up to actually sitting down and eating is automatic to me at this point, so I can perform them while still slightly asleep. After eating it's like I feel more alive, energized and I can finally take on my day. There is nothing better than eating a well-balanced and slow breakfast before an exam, it really calms you down and gives you the energy you need. As I wake up my body is still half asleep, and even if I move around a little, it’ll still be on “reserve battery power” mode. The moment I first take a bite of toast or cereal is when my body realizes its supposed to be awake and decides to start working. I know it sounds obvious, food gives you energy of course, but just making an effort to eat more than just a granola bar on the go already makes mornings easier.

Eating breakfast is my meditation. As a former fat kid I can also attest it's the most delicious and rewarding kind of meditation available. As you wake up, empty stomach and whatnot you deserve breakfast, but all you did to deserve that was sleep, see how easy that is? Also, breakfast is the only meal of the day where I gorge myself on whatever I feel like eating because I know I’ll be able to burn out all those calories along the day. Besides, breakfast food is the best kind of food there is, don’t even try to deny it.

With all of this I can imagine you’ve spent this entire essay wondering “but how does she have the time to do all of this? She must be a low-life college student, that is definitely the only way she can afford this kind of luxury”. And let me tell you, that is not at all what it is. I make time for it, I wake up earlier than I need to because I want to reward myself, because I want to begin my mornings by doing something that makes me happy and whole.