Out Of The Dark

I get dressed in the dark (which makes it kind of amazing that my clothes ever match). For a while, I navigate my apartment in the dark (in an apartment, you try to wake as few people as you can any earlier than you have to). I come home from work in the dark. For many years, I went to work in the dark, and sometimes even now I am headed off before daylight. It's a lot of dark for someone who doesn't much like the dark.
 
Being up in the dark, however, provides me some of the quietest, and if I can stay awake, most productive hours of my day. All of that "wake as few people" means that, while I may be managing projects related to members of my family, those family members are not buzzing around me, advising me on how to manage them. In the dark, I manage on my own. In the dark, I am a gourmet (well, adequate) cooker of lunches. In the dark, I am a writer and an organizer, and a cleaner of at least some of the chaos from the night before. In the dark, I manage to gain a little clarity on all the things I'll have to handle once it's light.
 
Truth be told, I might rather stay in bed till it's light. But then I might spend the rest of the day in the dark. Sometimes it's those wee hours of dark that help me manage the many hours of light. That keep me from trudging through life only half-prepared--in the dark, as it were.
 
So, for now, I guess I'll appreciate the dark. And how each day, it brings me into the light.