It is 5:40 and my alarm just went off. I am so good at showering. I am showering so fast. There is no more sleep in my eyes, no more drool on the corners of my mouth. I have work today.
It is 6:07 and I am dressed now. My shirt smells like high-fructose corn syrup that just morphs into something more pungent when I douse it in detergent. It isn’t a bad smell depending on the headspace I’m in. I am grabbing a cup of yogurt from the fridge now, and it’s not as dark anymore. The sun’s not up, though, and it won’t be for another hour. I am dreading daylight savings because then it will really be dark.
I’m fighting the urge to romanticize the solitude of the gentle dawn on mornings when I get ready for work. It’d be easy to spin it into a story about being up before the rest of the world, on my way to a coffee shop, where I will aid in waking up said rest of world. I could talk about how I pour my heart into every pitcher of milk that I steam; I could say how carefully I mix coffee so that no one has any inkling that it was made without utmost respect for their beverage preferences.
Hardly any of this is true! I am typically so wired with caffeine at the beginning of my shift that my perception of what is actually going on gets reduced to who is yelling, is it at me, and does it matter? There isn’t any merit to diagnosing my mornings as deeply sacred and aesthetic because the bloodbath that follows them completely invalidates the quiet. I can stare out the window all I want, intellectualize waking up early until there’s no synonym for “quiet” left unsaid. But I just don’t see the beauty of the early shift at a fast food place. If I worked in prep (NEVER AGAIN.) maybe I could spin the silence into something eloquent. But for now, I will put on my hat and slip on my (allegedly) non-slip shoes.
I do put my entire chest into making the perfect latte (even if I can’t make cute little milk hearts). I do break the protocol for standard drink build because my way makes the drink more homogeneous. I do take longer than everyone else to brew iced coffee to make sure my ratio of ice to coffee isn’t screwed up. I want everybody to drink good coffee, mostly I don’t want to get yelled at in the drive-thru. But I want to wake up early on purpose. I want to make sure you get the right drink. I want to wake people up! And helping with the big rush, the one before school, on a commute, going home from a 7 pm-7 am, that all happens when I work my shifts.
I get the grocery store to myself in the morning. Almost no one is there; I don’t have to take the long way around an aisle because it’s too much work to say “excuse me” sometimes. I can drive without being anxious in the morning because there are fewer cars on the road. I get more day if I wake up early.
I do not want to be a barista for the rest of my life. Especially because “barista” is putting my current occupation on a pedestal. I do not want to be a crew member (sigh) for the rest of my life. Not because I hate it, or because I think it’s low/unimportant work. But I don’t want to do it my entire life because I think way too highly of my ability to be right, which is kind of the opposite of Remedial Customer Service 101.
I wish I had a linear career/5-year plan/end goal/dream in mind. I hope I can wake up early when I am old, but I also hope that if the job I have requires early mornings, I want to do it. I have to wake up early tomorrow. I’m so grateful I have to tell myself not to romanticize it.