I guess what I really like about unhindered mornings is the very ability to ease into them. When there is no rush to go anywhere, no doctors to meet, no deadlines, no alarms bawling at you, and no food or meds to be taken at any particular time. The best chunks of these days I take respite in – “I don’t have to go anywhere now.”

Now that the radio and chemo sessions are finally over. The early morning rush to reach the hospital on time has been completely obliterated adding to a much calmer routine. There used to be a regime inside a regime wherein I was compelled to timebox my minutes even though I could be as slow as possible, yet miraculously late while reaching for my sessions.

I felt somewhere I was still doing things to be not scolded by the doctor lady who had announced in desperation once – ‘Make sure this patient comes before 9:40 AM’ coz I refused to show up earlier owing to a mixup. I had assumed that my time was 9 AM or 9:30 AM while they expected me there to be at 8:30 AM. I had inadvertently slipped into a self-created slot when we would usually make it to the hospital, and had been doing so for 20 days straight, and yet she seemed to have a problem so late. Well, beats me!

I guess not everyone is the same. She could have cut slack on patients, you know, empathy and all, but seemed like she cared more for her time than her patients however dubious span.

Good thing is that it is in the past now. The daily drudgery of activities of a life that technically only began after I returned from the hospital is over now. I can relax now.

Now the only thing that probably offers me a deadline is the sun. I don’t want to miss the sunrise. The body clock takes care of it. I like how the cosmos eases me into mornings and doesn’t rush me. Today I was surprised to find out, after having done all the chores, that I still had one good hour left before my office would begin. I took a power nap to make the most of it, just to reset.

Yes, catching hold of a day feels different. Catching the reins of hours as they try to squeeze past your fingertips feels surreal when you still have plenty of sand left to spare.

Time plays weird games when you have fewer things to do. When your mind is clear, when you have slowed everything around you, work doesn’t feel like work. Things keep on happening one after the other. You hit home runs on every single one of them.

Meditation has helped a lot, so much that it makes me feel I have entered another realm altogether. Time has slowed down for me and I have made amends with it. Somewhere deep down, now it doesn’t feel like at some point, I might not have any more of it.