Wake up in Love
(*more of a mini book than a blog post*)
What’s up with that Wake up in Love thing?
Have you noticed the pictures of me, in the morning, in bed, with the caption “Wake up in Love”, usually shared as a story?
What IS Wake up in Love?
a sampling of what Wake up in Love looks like, over years
Typically my face is included in the scene.
Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a picture of the view from my bed, because I love that view. A string of moons tinkle in a high rectangle window that shows only sky from my position in bed, vertical art masks framing a wooden dresser, currently buried in pots of jade plants that haven’t always been there. The tone is warm because the trim color is sunshine gold and that’s the vibe of my bedroom.
Sometimes it’s a black background and only the words.
These are the days I’m up before the sun. They are not frequent. I still take the picture but there’s nothing to show. Unless I forget to turn the flash off and then that’s a funny picture!
The picture used to often be with Dooder’s face, this whole thing BIGly started with him after all and there have been times it’s been quite sore to Wake up in Love without him, or to write about this and miss him.
One time it was with some other guy’s face in the frame and that really shocked some folks. Waking up with random dude had a certain effect on the experience of Kymology’s Wake up in Love stories.
Now, it’s sometimes with Duck’s face. He has a cute face and that affects the reactions too. It’s also now, sometimes with a not random guy’s face or you can tell someone else is there by the someone else’s arm somewhere in the aroundground. But it’s not shocking because I’m known to be with this guy now. The infrequent appearance of this guy’s face in this otherwise regular scene though, has stirred its own variety of drama.
First people wondered if that was my boyfriend. Especially after the previous inclusion of some other guy at some point where I otherwise seemed to be single and alone. If you have been following for awhile, you know who this guy Joe is now but you are probably still some surprised when you see him because it’s not the norm. It’s not the norm because it’s not about the person I’m waking up next to.
Additionally, you may even get pissed for Joe when he’s in the picture because you can’t believe I would post such an unflattering image of him, still asleep with his mouth agape. Or maybe it’s that you feel bad for him because you think his appearance is infrequent and I seem to be hiding the fact that I’m with someone. You want to defend him about getting cut out!
All these scenarios describe the very regular scene of a very regular thing I do in my life: Wake up in Love.
I wake up, I take a picture, I add the caption: Wake up in Love, and I share it. I do that every day and it’s going on 7 years now, and I call it a practice, a ritual, a Kymology thing I do.
Wake up in Love.
What other people think WUIL is
Wake up in Love has gotten a lot of attention over the years. I have received such a spectrum of response.
Things like:
“There she goes again.” “People who take selfies are vain.” “That’s so narcissistic.” “She must think she’s pretty.” Thoughts probably more often thought than shared, but they’ve been shared too.
And the other side: “There she is again!” “People who do daily rituals are so at peace.” “That seems like a fun thing to do.” “She’s beautiful.” “You’re so consistent”, said as a compliment. Thoughts also shared.
You wake up in love, I wake up to you.
People who follow me, who also start their day with social media, will often see this story as their wake up content. At least when I’m getting up that early. “You’re one of the first things I see when I’m starting my day. I don’t know exactly what it’s about, but it seems like a good thing and I like waking up to you.”
Another side is if I don’t share this story, if I miss a day or a few, people start to ask if I’m okay. “Where’s the Wake up in Love today, ?!”, they ask.
I have been asked what it means and people have assumed what it means. Whether you know or you’ve made it up, if you have noticed it in a significant way, you have likely used it in some way in your life too.
A cast of the most common comments, missing the point:
“I wish”, “lucky dog”, “lucky guy”, “happy you have someone like that”.
“Maybe one day for me.” “beautiful” “gorgeous” “sexy” “🔥”, “🥵” and so on.
The reason I label these as “missing the point” is because WUIL doesn’t actually have anything to do with someone else and it doesn’t have to do with what I look like either.
Wake up in Love is about waking up in love with life, with YOUR life, and with YOUR SELF. Yes, what a narcissistic idea: to be in love with yourself! How terrible some people think that is.
What I know of, of what people think, is a small representation of what exists. Whether it’s “I look forward to it”, “please don’t stop”, “I like seeing you every day”, or I get unfollowed because it’s too much or redundant or uninteresting, whatever it is, it’s a fraction. You should always expect that whatever you’re aware of, there is more of.
I learned this from the pickle video when I was 16 managing reviews for an outfitter. Whenever a customer complains, you can bet there’s more of that than the one who spoke up. Good or bad, there is more than you are aware of and I keep that in mind.
Where it came from: A break up
It came from a WHEN. In 2018 I was really struggling and it seemed to have a lot to do with a relationship I was in, or rather one I was vacillating in and out of. I was in the time and space of constant fight and flight, big make ups and huge melt downs. I was in a volatile relationship that felt violent. I left and went back, over and over again, not able to see clearly, leave, and stay gone.
During this time, one of my ideas about what “good relationship” entailed, was to never go to bed bad.
This was the kind of quote you’d see evidencing great relationships. “Couples who really love each other, don’t go to bed bad.” You read this in a book on love and healthy relationships. “My grandparents have been married a hundred years and they’ve never gone to bed mad at each other a day in their lives.”
You know the sayings. You hear it said. Whether it’s “don’t go to bed bad”, “don’t go to bed angry”, “don’t leave upset”, “never leave without saying I love you”, whatever it is, you know the gist of the commandment.
But do you ever SEE it? Have you ever actually seen this in practice, in real life? Do you actually know one of these people who have “never gone to bed bad”?
Does anyone really lives like this?!
If you know ONE, do you know TWO?
When I looked around in my life, I didn’t see any.
I knew no such real life people, or examples of doing this. No couples practicing, some preaching. I didn’t see this in reality, but I had taken on these sayings and I had made it a requirement for ‘good relationship’ in my life. In “good” relationships, people don’t go to bed bad and all the variations of that became important to me. “Don’t leave angry”, “don’t go to sleep upset”, and the lot.
A relationship ideal was formed: I will be in a good relationship, therefore I don’t go to bed bad.
I had an unconscious rule and it was constantly being broken.
In this relationship struggling and constantly fighting and in intense negative states of mind, my ideal of not going to sleep or anywhere, angry or hurt, was not only non existent, it was the norm.
I was going to bed bad.
I was going to work bad.
I was going to the kids baseball games bad, to the holidays bad, to the shower bad, to the wake up bad, to the go to sleep bad. It was all real bad to me.
Being a human who believed that “going to bed bad” was BAD and that meant ‘bad relationship’, this was compounding into a nightmare I couldn't even have, because I couldn’t even sleep (going to bed bad).
Fight and flight status on repeat, I eventually flighted and stayed gone and this is when Wake up in Love became a thing.
I left and went to a place I could be alone.
Alone with the exception of Dooder. Dooder came with me on these flights from fighting. Tsotis had died the year before so it was just me and him.
Now alone, I could go to bed alone, wake up alone. And without the problem, I should be able to not go to bed bad. This seemed to be the answer! If you get away from the bad, you won’t go to bed bad, and the problem will be solved. If you go to bed alone, you can’t go to bed fighting, and therefore you can’t go to bed bad, right?
Wrong.
Getting alone did fix my going to bed bad problem.
The proximity changed. The fighting continued. And I was still going to bed bad.
Going to bed bad and waking up bad, too.
That feeling where you wake up from poor sleep and wish your reality wasn’t your reality. As you slowly come to and remember where you are, what happened, what’s going on. Then the anxious, stressed, nausea and heart pace show up. Dreading the day because you woke up that way.
After some nights and mornings like this, still away, trying to feel sanctuary at this location that was physically removed from what I saw as the problem, I sought peace.
If peace was what I was fight-flight-ing for, why wasn’t I getting it? And now I was doing the “going to bed bad” business, on my own.
If I leave the problem and still have the problem, I must BE the problem.
What will it take to not wake up bad?
It was one morning in the midst of all this, that I woke up with this significant noticing.
You’re still going to bed bad and you’re still waking up bad.
You supposedly left the problem and the issue remains.
It must be you. It must be your fault.
This was a heavy, troubling thought.
What would change this?, I started to figure.
I thought about the nature of waking up. The first things you think about, where do those thoughts come from? I inventoried the things I did when I first woke up.
Wake up, check phone, check texts, check email, check social media. These things are probably affecting my thoughts, I thought, and my thoughts are affecting my morning, my morning is probably affecting my whole day. Maybe if I controlled my first thoughts, I could positively change the day!
Once I figured it started with thoughts, then I thought about what would be a good thought to start all the other thoughts with?
WAKE UP IN LOVE
That’s when the idea: wake up in love, occurred!
I thought about love. It was the feeling I wanted the most and didn’t feel. And then not only LOVE but the even higher ideal: IN LOVE. What about that feeling?! Is that the best of the best feelings?
I thought about love and being in love.
Instead of striving for the opposite of bad, not bad, I looked for what would be BEST. What would be the ideal, and IN LOVE came up. In love came to mind as a favorite feeling, a favorite state to be in. And a strong contrast to the lack of love I felt in the relationship I was struggling in and fleeing from, perhaps I took a pendulum swing to the opposite. I didn’t only want to be out of this bad state, I wanted to be in a BEST state.
I looked up memories of being in love, what I remembered from times of being in love. And I thought about how “in love” is different than love and loving.
That feeling where you wake up from sleep, maybe even little sleep because you were up all night with this person, and you come to and remember where you are, what happened, what’s going on. You’re in love. Whether the person is in bed beside you or at the other end of a call or text, you’re in love and you’re thinking about them. Then the anxious, excited, heart pace show up. You smile just thinking about your reality, looking forward to the day because you woke up that way.
I looked for all the ways of what it felt like to be in love.
I thought about all the sayings and things about being in love, how the in love thing doesn’t last and shouldn’t be expected to. Unrealistic they say.
The kind of quote you’d see evidencing what “in love” is. “Love doesn’t last.” “I love her but I’m not in love with her anymore”. You read this in books, and quotes, and hear it said. Whatever the phrase, you know the commandment.
You read it and you hear it but do you ever see it? Have you ever seen people in love, stay there? Do you know anyone who is in love and beyond the honeymoon time?
Do you see anyone doing it? Do you know anyone in real life who actually lives like this? Loves like that? Do you know anyone who stays in love?
I looked around, I saw none. I saw a few relationships that seemed like they were doing something right and overall happy, but they didn’t necessarily look like they were “IN LOVE” to me.
What if it’s not true that “in love” can’t last forever?
What if you could be in love forever?
Could you be IN LOVE all the time?
What if IN love isn’t a passing, unsustainable, unstable thing?
What would it take to sustain being IN LOVE?
Maybe I could test it. Maybe I should test it.
What would it take to wake up in love every day?, I wondered. A new idea had occurred. And a far fetched difficult one at that. How could I wake up in love everyday in the middle of a nasty break up?! The audacity of such a thought!
Could I do that? Could I control that? Could I create that? Could I BE that?
At a time when I felt I didn’t have control over much and I felt so unloved, and was unsure about everything, I had this idea that I latched on to. Something to change this state. Something I came up with to help me with this break up.
I knew no such real life people, or examples doing this. (AKA no one to ask.) Maybe I could be one. I didn’t see this in reality, but I had thought it as possible and I made it an interest in my life.
An ideal was formed: I will live a good life, I won’t go to bed bad, and I won’t wake up bad either. I will wake up in love.
That will be my thing. That will be my way. And that’s what I did.
Starting The Thing
First day, start the thing. Sure I had the idea, but how to actually do that?
To wake up in love, what does that mean? What does that look like?
It meant, at wake up: think about love.
At first that was it. That simple. That was all I tried to do.
Wake up, think about love, think about the in love, type of love, and wake up. Easy enough.
Later I would understand or come to believe that thoughts lead to feelings but I wasn’t coming at it with that “scientific mumbojumbo” when I started.
I just thought: wake up and think. Direct your thinks.
Think love, feel love. Think in love. Be in love.
Control your state. Choose your state. Choose love.
Control your thoughts, by choosing your thoughts.
No matter what, LOVE. And not just love, but IN love.
Wake up and think about love. Wake up IN love.
The idea was: how will you start your day?
What will you start your day thinking about?
If you feel you control nothing, what can you control?
If you feel you are out of control, what is one small thing you can control?
Find that. Choose that. Start there.
And consider what you actually want to feel and what you can do to get that feeling for yourself.
So I thought: I can control the first thing I think about. Or if I think about something else first, I can change the thought. I can train myself to do that.
First thing, when I came back to consciousness from sleep, the moment to start a new day, to start a fresh blank page, I thought of the best thing I could think of, the thing I was most missing and most wanting in my life. At that time it was LOVE.
As I started this practice other things came up. What does it take to feel love? Where does love come from? And again not just love, but IN LOVE, an intense side of the spectrum of love.
As I explored this concept, I considered how my feelings were affected. What was within my power and capacity to do, to create this state? How do I create my own feelings?
I can not be deterred. No one can make me feel not love, less than love, not loved.
I can feel love regardless of what someone is or is not doing “to” me, or for me.
Things I thought, things I thought to explore.
Things I looked to prove or disprove.
I lined myself up to be in love all the time, every morning, I started that way.
I chose and directed my thoughts. I stopped checking my phone to start my day.
I started my days with the most ideal feeling I knew of at the time
Mornings start days and days make life.
Thus, Wake up in Love became the way I started each day.
Open your eyes, think the thought, create the feeling, take a picture, share it.
The take a picture, share it part, was a spontaneous afterthought that stuck.
Taking the Wake up in Love picture
I recall the first day I did this, I was in bed with Dooder. He was a big part of this Wake up in Love business. When I thought of love and looked at him, many of my thoughts had to do with OTHER. Other people, other beings, other things. That love came from and was about, others and otherness. These thoughts were also ones that helped by my being in the midst of a breakup, feeling very unloved. Hard to be in love when there is no one to love. I loved Dooder and used that love to start my big thinking about love.
The thought was: take a picture, capture the moment, this is love. Wake up in Love, this is what that looks like. And I shared it. I shared it despite some thoughts: what will they think. It felt a vulnerable share and I did it anyway.
Smiling does not = love or happy
Another controversy of Wake up in Love, is that many people think love looks like a smile. If you’re not smiling, you’re not happy, if you’re not happy, you're not in love. I don’t smile for the camera in these Wake up in Love moments because that’s not what is naturally happening. If you think she couldn’t have just woken up because she looks too good at wake up, I’d say putting on a smile would be the peak of faking this.
It’s not about smiling. It’s about thinking. And yes thinking leads to feeling and feeling leads to expressions with your body, like smiling or frowning and the lot. And that’s usually not what’s happening for me in this Wake up in Love moment. And I don’t value smiling or other people’s impressions of what I’m doing, enough to put that on for the picture.
Wake up in Love, like in a pool of love, in a state of love, in a deliberate belief and being of LOVE. That’s what it’s about. Being in love with your self and your life.
In love like my physical body exists in this space, and the space is love. That’s literally IN love. That’s a version of IN LOVE. You are literally in it. You have to play with the words. Consider the thing to get to what it really means, what it could mean to you. Break it down, build it out.
Continue
The Thing
I love. I am love. I am in love. IN LOVE.
It started as a response to heartbreak (language I no longer use), a response to pain and struggle about love, about what love is, about what relationship is. It came from thinking love comes from another person. What it is and isn’t supposed to be and my rules for it and about it.
Was “no going to bed bad” a good rule or was I in a “bad” relationship?
It started as a way to dig myself out of being hurt and fighting and sad and miserable and simply not wanting to go to bed bad or wake up bad or go anywhere “BAD” anymore and having all these bad days. I noticed the ends and beginnings of my days were wrecking me and I wanted to change that.
I wanted this thing to help me feel better, to soothe my hurting heart, to recover from feeling lost about love, to recover from questioning everything and not knowing what love is or what good relationship does. To stop the endings and beginnings of things from being bad.
I realized, I can love and be love and no one can take that or change that, if I choose it.
What if I can feel love with or without another person, with or without a significant other relationship.
My love is not dependent on someone else.
My love does not rely on being loved.
Can that be true? Can that exist?
Love independent.
So I figured. So I decided. So I created.
Perhaps this is my version of “unconditional love”, a thing I generally and overall dissubscribe to. I don’t think unconditional love, to give it , receive it, or seek it is necessarily a possible thing or a good thing.
(*Link to “no thanks to: Unconditional Love”.)
Wake up in Love.
I made it up.
I made it all up and it worked!
This practice separated love from being a thing outside of me, something I got or felt when things were going well, when someone was treating me the way I wanted or expected to be treated. Something that was outside of my control and ability to have.
It changed it from being a thing I had in my relationships, to BEING ME, mine, and from me, the relationship with my self and my life.
IN LOVE is all time possible because it comes from you.
A new BIG idea had occurred.
Waking up in Love, Changes Love
Waking up in Love, changes love in general.
Over time, I stopped seeing love as something we do to and for each other.
I stopped seeing it as a thing we give and receive. I stopped seeing it as something someone else “makes me” feel and I stopped seeing it as something that can be taken away. Something that doesn’t die, end, or break.
I saw a distinction: love and relationships are not the same.
This practice of WAKING UP IN LOVE, illuminated things and changed what love was to me.
Maybe Wake up in Love is a tertiary love language.
Now love to me is a state of being.
And no one can take love from me or give me love when I AM the love.
Whatever day I took a selfie and started this thing, it was not a plan.
It was not a narcissistic thing to do, it was not meant to be sexy or beautiful, or attention seeking. It was for my self and I was willing to share about it.
I was saving myself from bad days. It was about me.
The thought was: take a picture, capture the moment, this is love, share it.
Share it just in case it works and can “save” someone else or do some good somewhere or just to document it. I didn’t know all that I was doing, I just felt to do it and I did.
7 years later and more than a thousand Wake up in Love pictures taken many conversations about it, here we are: Wake up in Love-ing.
So when you see a Wake up in Love picture, this is what Wake up in Love is.
This is what it came from, this is what it did for me.
And because I’ve been sharing, it’s become more than what I explain it to be.
It’s become something others notice, maybe you. Something others use, appreciate, enjoy, it’s what they wake up to, how some folks start their days too. Something other people have made up their own meaning for what it is. It’s beyond me.
If you want to know what it looks like to me tomorrow, there will be a picture.
And the next day, there will be a picture there too. Probably. Unless I’m on a rare hiatus and being very insular. That does happen from time to time!
Behind the scenes and under the covers of Wake up in Love-ing:
The literality of Waking up in Love includes all the things your basic wake up includes: time, location, sometimes other people (others), and what you look like to name some.
Wake up time. Sometimes I wake up “early”, sometimes I wake up “late”.
What’s early? What’s late?
Sometimes people would be counting on my WUIL story and they’d be well into their day before I was waking up. This was fun and funny to experience. Whether it was because I was in a different time zone or stayed up late and am getting up late, for good or bad reasons, it all affects.
It also adds a layer to my feelings around what time I get up and start my day. I don’t feel great when it’s “late” and I feel like I’ve let anyone down who is used to seeing this thing of mine and counts on the consistency.
Also about wake up time: sometimes it’s so dark, you can’t see me, and I take the picture anyway. These are the black ones with just the words “Wake up in Love” and sometimes a time stamp to show off how early I was awake. Bonus for when the flash isn’t off and I look like an animal spotlighted at the trash bin.
Wake up location. Over the years the wake ups have been in a variety of places. Often from my bed (the “obvious”) but I have had streaks where I was regularly not waking up in my own bed and I felt a type of proud about that because that kind of waking up elsewhere that I was doing, meant I was traveling often and traveling used to be a sign of good living to me. Many elsewhere wake ups, coming from other beds, and other people’s beds, tents, floors, couches, and in other, sometimes unusual places.
Wake up with others. Waking up with others has been an especially interesting part of this at certain times. Since I was single at the time of starting this, my wake ups started out alone plus one when I wasn’t traveling and my plus one was always Dooder. Him being THE OTHER was such a thing and editing this write about Wake up in Love at the point that he is dead now, hurts.
Waking up with Dooder. The most important and frequent other. MY S.O. He was such my companion during this time. It became a whole thing. People started to seriously joke that he was my boyfriend, my partner, making jokes about who he was to me. He was my son and partner at the same time, and I know that makes it weird. This is another story. But the part for the Wake up in Love Exhibit is about the BIG role he played in my life and in WUIL.
At first, it specifically included him. While I was navigating figuring out what love and in love were, it didn’t start out as being this internal thing. I know I looked at him and felt: this is love. I used him to feel love and to figure out some things about love. I know I held him and made up for the lack of love I felt elsewhere. I know I pressed my face into his neck and cried when I felt unloved. I know I breathed in his warmth and his scent when I wanted to feel close to someone. He is where forehead kisses came from. He was such a lover. He was such love to me and still is. And he helped birth this whole Wake up in Love thing, as a thing.
He was also a big part of it because I felt a bit weird taking a selfie every morning. I worried people would take it wrong; selfies having a bad wrap. Sometimes I looked sexy and wasn’t trying to. I figured having a dog in the picture might lessen the perceived vanity or misinterpretations of it somehow, so it helped when he was in the picture. And he most often was naturally, literally in the picture because we slept together as spoons. So when he naturally wasn’t in the picture, it felt weird and it brought up: what do I do? Do I take the picture without him and risk being seen as sexy and self absorbed, or do I go get him and take the picture which would make the fact that it’s FIRST THING at wake up, untrue and the whole thing staged because I woke up and went and got the dog and got back in bed to take the picture. That didn’t feel right, so we didn’t do that. I went with: take it without him in those times and FELT that he was very much in it. I don’t go get him to be in the picture and he is in the IT of it.
Waking up with Dooder was a special part of this that is now closed. Dooder died in May 2023. It feels sore to write about this and know that there will be no more physical Wake up in Loves with him.
Because I have earlier writes on this topic I have this: I now wake up most often with an other, my You and my plus 2s, Dooder and Duck.
This was a note about how Wake up in Love had changed, before it changed again.
Waking up with others, part ii. Since I started out single and this whole image was of me or of me and my handsome hunk of a dog, it got awkward when I started to date. What do you do when you have this Wake up in Love practice that requires a selfie at wake up when you are having a one night stand and that person is in the frame?
What do you do when it’s not a one night stand and you’re kind of seeing someone but certainly nowhere near FB official and that dude is in the frame?
What do you do when you’re full on seeing someone and still not interested in doing a public official post about it, and again, the person is in the frame?
Do you move after you wake up, so he is cut out of the picture? Do you wake up and shuffle to the other side of the bed, then Wake up in Love? I’m serious when I say it is the literal FIRST thing I do, and anytime that has been challenged, it has been a whole thing, including: guy has his arm across my chest, and I feel conflicted about taking the picture. Let’s take a picture of the ceiling for this one!, might have happened a few times.
Because when I started doing this it was me or me and “my dog” Dooder, who I really don’t think much of as a dog, people got used to it being that scene, that lineup, those people. When you make this part of your life public, and many parts, other things are decided and concluded like: you’re single. The time between starting this as single and “starting to mingle” was an interesting time and brought up a lot of questions about if I was being inauthentic to strategically omit any evidence of another human in my wake ups.
One time, once I was in the seeing someone but not interested in making it FB official, I didn’t strategically avoid the guy’s arm, I took the picture as I woke up and proceeded to write a post: this is not my FB relationship status update, this IS how I woke up. It felt audacious
(audacious: showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks)
but doing something that felt inauthentic like taking a picture that strategically kept cropping him out felt even more audacious
audacious: showing an impudent lack of respect).
It caused a stir and I survived it. It has since become one of my favorite interesting stories to tell. It goes in the book: to be so brazen and get some worth it backlash.
Waking up with other people: while it’s not ABOUT them, it does sometimes include them.
Wake up looks like:
Que playing Beyonce’s Flawless in the background to write this part.
It didn’t start with this as a theme song. I woke up like this, was literal and I took the picture. I also erred to NOT add a filter, although that has not been an absolute over the time of doing this. I think filters are fun sometimes. But the essence of it was natural, real, this is what it really looks like. That is what I was going for. So while there may be a filter sometimes, there has NEVER been a time I got up and did my hair or my face before taking that picture. I promise you that. I rarely “do my face” after I get up either, and not much with the hair.
The picture is at wake up because the thought is at wake up. That’s the point. Again, it is a literal first thing.
I used to sleep in the nude. Or is it naked? Whichever. I used to sleep with no clothes. Doing the picture at wake up during that time definitely contributed to the unintended sexy vibe, but again it was my life and I was taking a real picture to represent the real moment. Life.
So that meant I didn’t get dressed and then take the picture so as to not potentially “give the wrong idea”. I generally seek to not live a life where I’m guarding against not doing something I believe in because others might get the “wrong ideas”.
I also did not sleep with clothes when I wanted to sleep naked, in order to wake up and take a picture that didn’t give the thought that I was naked. Again, it’s about what’s really going on. Attempting to truly represent that.
Wake up with others, part iii: what they feel about it!
Sometimes the Wake up in Love includes another person and that means that person has to be okay with the real wake up look. A picture that some might see as “not flattering” or “I’d never let my girl post a picture of me like that”. For anyone worried about how he gets shown in these images, he believes in what I do and trusts what I choose and that is part of why HE is the one who gets to wake up there. 100% good with whatever I choose, he says.
Why I haven’t quit WUIL
(Summary)
I started this idea in my own bed, in my own head, getting away from bad days.
I have been asked questions about it, I have been told assumptions about it, I have learned that it affects others. I know people miss it and check in when I don’t share WUIL. I have been told people can’t stand to see it. I have heard “I wish” and “I want that” and “can I with you?”. People have sent me pictures of their own Wake up in Love scenes. (This is a fave!)
Compiling this write, I can see that it has been so many things. And there are things written I haven’t even included here. It has both changed and remained the same. A picture, at wake up, every morning since 2018. I must have thousands of WUIL pictures by now. I think it would be awesome to see them in a reel paired with an audio track that really gets you. One of those videos that “makes you” feel something about life. Sentimental about love, nostalgia, and good mornings. I think I’ll do that soon. That visual to go with this textual.
It started as one thing and it has shape shifted into other things over the years, always with the same fundamental undercurrent of: direct your thoughts when you wake up.
If days make life, mornings start days.
(Unless you're a 2nd or 3rd shift person. I don’t know about that stuff!)
Even when I have doubted if love is the most important thing, and a good way to start all my days, since starting this, I have never strayed from the idea or the practice of choosing morning thoughts and setting up my energy for the day. Once I understood that, I couldn’t not do it.
When Dooder died that was a significant time when I considered ending it. Since it started with him and I had some doubts about it over several iterations by then, I could make it make sense that I ended it when he died. I could have lined it up. Instead I think I used his death as a good reason to STOP questioning it.
So here I am, still doing it.
