Wake-up Call

When we go to the shore, I love waking up early in the morning and walking for miles along the beach. I usually get up at about 6:30 and wake everyone else up so that they can come out and enjoy the ocean breeze with me.
Well, you can guess how that goes over. I end up with two and a half grumpy people, (my daughter is mostly receptive), who are only thinking of the sleep I stole from them.
Like most things, I forget about this every year and every year I end up feeling perplexed by the less than enthusiastic attitudes of those I love; why don’t they see how much fun this is, I think to myself as I try to wake them every morning, year after year.
Ah – but it must be that my advancing age, and all the Oprah shows I watched when my kids were little, actually turned out to be good for something, because this year I only tried to wake them on the first morning. Their furrowed brows and flash of arms as they yanked the covers back over their heads finally popped my, everyone-must-have-fun-together bubble.
So for the rest of the week I got up early, dressed amid the hum and whistle of my sleeping family and walked straight into the rising sun. And you know what? I enjoyed the ocean breeze and the wide sky all by myself. I guess that’s why they say, another year older, another year wiser.