I started walking at dawn and the mornings stopped feeling so hostile

Dear Delyara, I did not do this because I became virtuous. I did it because I was desperate. The mornings had become brutal in my body — dread before messages, tension before school, noise before thought, the whole day crashing in too early. I needed a different beginning. So one week I got up before everyone else, put on the first warm thing I could find, and walked. At first it was uncomfortable. Then it became medicine. Birds before people. Cold air before requests. Sky before screens. My own feet before anyone else’s needs. Nothing dramatic has changed in my life because of those walks. The children are still children. The bills are still bills. The job is still the job. But something in me now enters the day less ambushed. That matters more than I would have believed before I was desperate enough to try it.