This morning we all got up from bed a little too late. I think we are all fighting some bug so our bodies were so heavy against the soft mattress. A few years ago, getting up too late would have thrown my nervous system into total panic mode, throwing me into the realm of “not being on top of things”. As we age, we hopefully mature and realize one thing after another, and one of those is for me that there is no such thing as being on top of things. Being on top of things is a delusion, a comfort blanket, a way to somehow organize a chaotic world into nice categories and folders. We don’t know what will happen next. We don’t know if our partner will pick up the slack. We don’t know if our kids fancy being spoon-fed porridge in the morning. Not saying we shouldn’t show up and do our best, whatever that may look like. 

As I was making said porridge for my daughter I accidentally used muesli instead of oats. We store those in the same kind of boxes and they both contain oats. After putting the muesli in a pot with water I realized my mistake and a thought appeared like a neon store sign behind my forehead: “I am not awake yet”. My body was likely producing this thought because of my sleepy mistake, and the zennie in me couldn’t help but smile. In that moment I did wake up. I saw through my morning stress, my ideas of how things should be (no muesli in the porridge as one), and ease and joy filled me. Things are just as they are supposed to be – they are. We get new chances every moment to wake up to what we are doing. When we stop resisting life as it is and walk with eyes wide open, ordinary, wondrous things can happen. Like waking up from muesli.