Waking Up

Do you ever experience this thing where for a couple brief seconds after you wake up you have no idea who you are? You just are.

And then your name, your personality, and what you need to do that day come flooding back over you.

It’s such a disappointment. Not that I don’t love being who I am, but whenever all that info dumps back onto me in the morning, it feels like an unnecessary weight. Oh yeah, I have to be that person. Sigh.

I try to recapture the blissful nothingness of the first moment of consciousness, but there’s no getting it back.

I think maybe that’s a taste of what it’s like to be fully enlightened. No burden of having to be a particular limited human being. Just an expanse of pure consciousness.

I could definitely do without the to-do list too. Mere seconds after waking, my head is awash with: I need to mail that letter today, and send out that book to reviewers, and get the car back early from work for Brad, and I should contact that person, and I think I need to buy more dog food. 

I wonder if there is any way to hold on to that blissfully empty state for just a few minutes longer.