You know those mornings when you wake up at 5:30am just feeling like you can take on the world? Like you had the best night of sleep ever and when you wake, naturally and pleasantly, with no alarm or dog barking, you feel as if you could float out of bed and conquer the entire day?

But then your daughter comes down the stairs and turns your bathroom light on, so you decide to pretend to sleep a while longer. You hear her flush the toilet and pad up the stairs, back to her room. You wait a reasonable length of time, sure she’s been able to get herself all tucked snuggly back into her bed and fall back to sleep, all the while thinking of the giant mug of hot tea you’re going to make once you get up. All about the emails you’ll return. Hey, you’ll have time to read and send notes back to the writers you owe notes to! You may even have time to do some dishes and laundry.

You laugh your ass off at that last part.

Your husband squeezes you so tight, so sweetly, that you feel like a complete and total bitch when you finally worm your way out of his early-morning grasp and tip-toe your way to the kitchen.

You are so quiet. Fucking ninjas got nothing on you. You don’t even turn a light on. You’re so in tune with the early morning starlight and pending sunrise that you don’t need extra light. All you’re thinking about is caffeine and reading and writing. Hell, you may do a few push-ups and squats while you watch the morning news.

As you’re thinking about all the ways you can optimize your early rising, you turn to go to the living room.

And there, right in front of you, is a white shadow of a girl almost your height, just standing cold and silent and terrifyingly still and you scream and almost shit yourself.

You yell, “JESUS! What the hell are you doing?! You scared the shit out of me?!”

And your daughter just shrugs, flips the kitchen light on, and says, “I was hungry.”

You don’t go back to sleep. You don’t write or read or do fucking anything you were wanting to do. You wonder how she got so damn quiet and if she’s really some old soul just fucking with you.

Then you make some tea, talk to her about a new story idea for her school project, and wait till the sun comes up.