“Why do you let him knock at 6?”

I’m sitting next to my wife, who is already under the covers of our bed. The light on her nightstand glows, filling the darkened bedroom. Knowing what is about to happen, I wait.

The bedroom door opens, and my five-year-old boy comes in, hugs his mother, tells her goodnight, and then goes back to bed. He mutters a goodnight to me, but the visit, as regular as clockwork, happens every time I put him down to bed. He wants to come back in for one last goodnight with Mom.

My son gets up between 5:45 and 6 most mornings. If I’m at work, he knows to wait until 6:30 before waking his mother. He also knows that if I’m home, he can get me at 6.

The joke I had for this past Lent was not original.

“What are you giving up for Lent?”

“For Lent, I’m just giving up.”

I had been promoted last November, and the rising tide of new expectations and responsibilities had left me feeling outrageously stressed. I was making the stress of the new position worse by trying to keep up with everything I had been doing before. I have seven things I try to do every day. I call it my morning routine, although sometimes, some of it lingers until after work. That’s not to say that’s not the only thing I do every day but for the most part, the main things that make me feel better about life and all these things I’m doing come down to these seven. 

Then, three days after Lent, I thought, why the hell not? I’m barely keeping up with my routine, so maybe take a break. It’s not you, it’s me. Maybe I’ve outgrown you. Perhaps I’ll stop some of these silly things and the fruitless dreams that want to cling to them. Maybe it’s better to focus on my new position in my company and being a husband and father.

I’ve known Dan since high school. Outside of my wife, he probably knows me best. I called him up and we spoke about me giving up my routine. He lives four states away, and I haven’t seen him in person in years.

He admits it’s a good idea, if only because it sounds like my routine is an addiction, specifically writing. “You write some pretty dark stuff.” He sheepishly says in our conversation, trying carefully to spare me any hurt feelings.

I don’t say what I’m thinking, but it’s this: Write what you know.

#1. Reading.

I couldn’t give up reading for Lent. I did scale it back. At any given moment, I’m trucking through 3-6 books. Mostly nonfiction, a novel, and sometimes a graphic novel. I went from reading everything to reading one book by Brennan Manning.

Stephen King wrote in his memoir, On Writing, that if you want to be a writer, you should be a prolific reader. I love stories. I love to learn. I’m addicted.

If I’m mowing the yard, I’m rocking an audiobook. I want to be learning, growing, and getting better. Maybe more than that, give me a good novel and let me get lost in the story for a little while.

Maybe that’s how the routine solidified. My son was born, and I had always wanted to be a writer, having written a few things and published a short story, but never done anything dramatic with it. There was no daily grind. It was – this could be a good idea. And then I’d write it or try to, and that was it for a long time. If I had a larger project in mind, it would take days or longer, but once finished, I would go back to wanting to call myself a writer, maybe even sheepishly doing it from time-to-time, but I was no more a writer than my three-year-old is an Olympic swimmer as she refuses to leave the steps of the pool.

My son, and then my daughter, became the reason why I needed to do this. When my wife was pregnant, I listened to every audiobook I could about what was happening to her body. My empathy going into overdrive, I jokingly told a friend, my breasts were beginning to feel tender. Then I started listening to audiobooks about parenting. If we were going to do this, we’d be doing it the best we could. Our kids deserve the best of us.

#2. Write.

Maybe I’m addicted. Maybe you’re even a little shocked by this one. I don’t know. When I gave up writing for Lent, I had been writing every day for just shy of 1900 days. It’s a lot to give up.

People ask stupid questions when you write. As if ideas come from a secret spot that people uncover. Or as if I’m confined to a genre that grips the weight of my creative force. 

I write to keep myself sane. Reading helps me get out of my head. More than a TV show or something on a screen, but with reading, I crawl into my head to escape it. Writing helps get some of those nasty spiderwebs out and even sort through some feelings that linger from past pains.

Something broke down when I got promoted. I went from knowing my job through and through to knowing nothing. It was a lot. It’s even more when you’re the provider for your family.

I don’t expect to ever be able to live off my writing. It’d be nice to sell a novel and (God willing) pay off my house. But life isn’t about things going easily or nicely. It’s one struggle to the next.

1900 days of writing. That’s over five years.

It’s weird, but those last hundred days had become a burden. I wasn’t excited about getting in front of the computer at four in the morning to tell my little lies. Instead, I started believing the lies: I am Kris the writer, Kris the manager….

I started seeing myself by what I produce. I wasn’t enjoying it because I was finding my self-worth in it. It was no longer fun because if it fails, it’s more than “I fail”, but rather it is “I am a failure”.

Maybe that’s true about you too. Reading this on a subway or in a bedroom or in your car. Maybe you are more special not because of your orientation or your ethnicity or anything you produce for the world, but rather, you’re special because your heart is special. As Whitman said, “Every atom belonging to you also belongs to me.”

During Lent, I had a short story accepted. This paycheck will put me at making over 500 dollars. Once the check comes in, I’m taking my wife out to the fanciest steak restaurant in the area as a thank you. She’s the support I have for me to hide out in my garage and write.

500 dollars isn’t a lot of money in the scheme of things, not for the effort that I’ve put into it. But it’s not about the money or the identity, but to feel a little sane. As Bradbury said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

Stopping was difficult.

I had an old car that was running okay, but I didn’t have enough money to take care of it properly. As I got money, I tried fixing things. Then another thing would go wrong. After about the fourth time, I asked the mechanic why. It was running when I was hardly taking care of it, now that I’m trying to fix it, it’s getting worse.

The mechanic shrugged, “Sometimes, it’s the gunk that holds it all together. Once something gets fixed, it messes with the gunk, and other things start to need to be fixed.”

The gunk in my life needed to be sorted out. I needed to rest. I needed to stop trying and just be who I was. Lent did that for me.

#3. Water

I haven’t had an energy drink in over four years. I went from drinking one or two a day to cold turkey. But my coffee intake increased. I began drinking a pot of coffee a day, bringing my thermos in at work so that I could finish it.

A year and a half ago, I started drinking a gallon of water a day. My coffee intake went down to a cup or two.

I don’t do energy drinks. I still drink soda, but when I’m drinking a gallon of water a day, I make a point to not allow myself to drink anything else until I’m finished with my gallon.

June 1, I’m back on a gallon.

#4. Pray

I wake up, usually before my alarm, and go to the bathroom before sneaking to the coffee maker. Most of the time, the last day’s cup or half a cup is in the fridge, and I take that and head down into my garage, which I turned into my office.

Walking down the stairs, I imagine it is akin to Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. I check that my computer is on and then put on music. Not loud, just loud enough so I can hear it, but to drown out the window air conditioner.

I place my stack of books and begin reading. This one I read six pages a day, this one – two or four pages, and still this one – ten. The goal is to finish at least five books a month. I don’t count audiobooks into this number, but I do try to finish five of those as well.

Then I’ll come across a book about God. The ritual pauses as I take a breath, and I try to pray.

Why are rituals important?

When my kids and I get into our pool, we always swim over to the ceramic frog on the other side of the pool and say hello. There’s no significance to it. It makes my kids laugh, so I keep it up.

Why do I drink coffee every day? Addicted. Okay. Fair point. Harsh, but fair.

Someone told me the Catholic service feels freeing to them because of the ritual in it. Structure, discipline, ritual – somehow opens a door for freedom. 

“Why do you let him get you at 6?” My wife asks about my son.

“Because one day, he won’t. One day, he won’t want to knock on the door and get big ol’ lame dad. He’ll want his solitude and his friends and his life apart from me. Until then, he can get me.”

I love my kids so much that there’s no real way to express this to them. It’s more than just telling them, hugging them, and doing things for them. It’s allowing my son to go to karate even though he cries on the way there, and it breaks my heart worse than he will ever know. It’s putting a band-aid on my daughter’s knee and speaking as if I know something as she leans into me.

They won’t ever know the love I have and how it overflows me. That is, until they have kids of their own.

I pray and strive and beat my chest in this morning ritual because I am trying to fathom a God who loves me this way.

“I surrender who I am. I surrender what I do. I give up. I cannot do everything or be everything. I will never be smart enough, strong enough. I am okay with that. I give up.”     

Reading in the morning, something will hit me in one book or another, or all of them, and I will stop and get silent. Praying becomes emptying my heart. Asking for wisdom and guidance. Praying for people who are hurting. Praying for peace in our country and for those who are suffering and abused, neglected by society. Praying because often, I just don’t know what else I can do.

I hold my heart in my hands and ask the hate to be drained away; it usually floods up when I’m tired anyway. I plead with the Divine to fill my heart with love. As Saint Francis said, “Make me an instrument of your peace.”

# 5. Vitamins

Then I’ll consult the checklist, and inevitably, vitamins are written on it. For as long as I’ve been alive, I haven’t been able to remember to take my vitamins.

I’m taking about 7 now. Something that is supposed to be good for my metabolism. Something that is supposed to be good for my heart. There’s a multivitamin and Vitamin C and a few others.

I read. I learn. I buy a different vitamin, and maybe I’m just creating expensive urine.

#6. Workout

“When did your Dad die?” my son asks as we were doing yardwork.

“He was 48.”

Without a pause, my son violently shakes his head, “That’s not fair!”

I close my eyes. I was ten. It wasn’t fair. “No buddy, it’s not.”

“He should live until he’s 85, like gampy told me that’s when he’s going to die.”

I’ve gained over twenty pounds since getting promoted. 10 more just over Lent. I’m back on and working my way down again. But there’s more at stake than just trying to get into my summer body. I work out because I don’t want to die. Not yet. I want my kids to have as much of me as possible.

During the Last Supper, the night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus broke bread and said it was his body. He passed around some wine. “This is my blood. Take. Drink. Consume. Eat. Take more of me. Take all of me. I’m leaving soon, and I want you to have as much of me as possible. I’m not going to be around for much longer.”

Maybe that’s why I’m running for forty-five minutes to an hour, or lifting weights, or denying that candy bar. Maybe it’s why I’m trying to drink a gallon of water a day. I’m panting as I push myself to be better. My muscles ache from the dumbbells sitting on the ground behind my chair as the music just whispers above the air conditioner. Take all of me, I tell my kids. Consume. I won’t be here forever.

#7. Journal

Sometime during this routine, whether the moment takes me, or I just have to force it, I journal.

I write what I eat, drink, and how much I sleep. I record where I submit and to whom. I tape in the personalized rejection letters as well as acceptance letters. Then I write how my heart feels.

It’s not enough to want to be alive. But this morning ritual, this routine, is my path of discipline to be alive, awake, and free.

Lent was rough. I wrote a poem and felt as if it were scandalous. I waited until Easter, the resurrection day, then I began writing again.

A magazine had reached out for me to review edits, which I promptly did. Then I wrote an essay and then worked on my novel and a handful of short stories, and here I am in June already.

The writing came back slowly. There wasn’t a sense of momentum until this past week, when I felt more revitalized. I don’t dread it like I was beginning to in those late February weeks. The feeling is closer to seeing an old friend.

Billy, an old coworker, twenty years ago, scolded people who needed a life-changing event to make themselves better. “If you have a kid or you almost die, you’re never going to really improve your life! It’ll be temporary. It’s weak to try and change your life.” Benji, one of my high school teachers, said, “New Year’s resolutions are stupid. It’s just another day.”

I need whatever motivation I can get to make myself better. The morning routine is about finding and being who I am. It’s making sure I’m not getting lost in the day-to-day grind, and suddenly, I’m on my deathbed.

I suppose what the routine comes down to is trying to find freedom, trying to get what I want out of life.

At 6, the door knocks. I shoot up and rush to the door, trying not to disturb my already disturbed wife. I pick up my son in the doorway, and he puts his head on my shoulder. My daughter, like my wife, usually sleeps in.

I carry my son down the steps into the kitchen and turn on the light. I put him on the kitchen counter. Sometimes we cook eggs. Lately, it’s been hot chocolate. This part of my morning is my favorite.

He smiles at me as he hugs his stuffed cat.

I know as a father, I need to give him the best of myself. Maybe I can’t always do that. Sometimes, most of the time, I’m tired. Sometimes I’m worn down from the day. But as the day goes on, my daughter gets up. My wife follows. We have breakfast, and even though it’s my day off, I monitor my phone just in case there’s a new or pressing email before I descend the stairs to go to my other routine.

About the Author:

Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 80 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine, and many more. He won the 2023 Barbe Best Short Story and Reader’s Choice Award for his short story, “Redemption”. He has regular nonfiction articles being published by Solid Food Press on fatherhood entitled “On Raising Savages”.

Feature image by Deep on Unsplash