Morning Joy

Joy

Morning joy

I’m always up before the birds and the sun

Always been a morning person

Partly due to a strategy developed in my early twenties 

To hit the deck as soon as my eyes opened

In order to avoid falling into the depressive abyss

 I often lived inside of

 Struggling to climb out

 My autistic, ADHD brain kicks off well before my eyes open

 Problem seeking and solving by nature

 It scans, scans, scans

 For problems to solve

 Like that time in 1987

 When I accidentally told my guitar teacher

 I had been gifted water BUMSInstead of water BOMBSFor Christmas

 And I wanted to sink inside of myself

 Or fall into a hole

4am

Reliving that moment

 An absolute cringe fest

 In fact, my brain never stops

I’m often jolted out of reverie

 In a panic, as my brain acts as an alarm

 Being a PDAer also means that as my threat response

 Is largely overactive

 It too, remains on watch

 Never entirely shutting down

 Friends in my teens commenting, joking“She can hear a stone in the gravel move in her sleep”

 And it was true

 I sensed human

Movement

Energy

 My ADHD neurology does not respond to exhaustion

 In the same way a non ADHD brain might

 It creates a greater frequency of energy

 My thinking ticks over, faster and faster

 My body completely disoriented

 And hyperactive

 The two attempting to meet in the middle

 Late to sleep?

 Still early to rise

 And yet

I’ve never known anything else

And so

This is my normal

I’m always up

Hours ahead of my family

Coffee had

Writing done

Daily planning

Thinking

Watching the sun rise

Quiet moments

No humans

Animals chatting

Birds bickering 

And singing

My family join me 

One by one 

And I greet them 

With excitement 

Intensity 

Overwhelming intensity 

I try so hard 

To be patient 

Considerate 

To tone it down 

But I dance 

And I sing 

And I stim 

And I laugh 

Morning is joy 

Pure joy 

Another day 

My husband sits 

On the side of the bed 

And I greet him with an explosion of thoughts 

And feelings 

And analysis 

Over previous events 

Or something I’ve read 

While he rubs his face and sinks his head into his hands 

No idea what I’m saying 

His brain still catching up 

And I realise

It’s too much in this moment 

And so I try to tone it down 

But I can’t 

So I rejoin my children 

And we laugh 

And sing 

And play 

An abundance of beautiful

Chaotic 

Energy 

A dance 

Of colour

Joy 

Morning joy 

And off they go 

All of them 

One by one 

Out the door 

And I am regulated 

And happy 

And calm 

And they are regulated 

And happy 

And calm

Joy 

Morning joy

.

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Kristy Forbes

inTune Pathways