the monday that wasn't

on waking up, breaking down, and realizing the week never ends

this morning, i woke up at 6:30. fed the cat. turned on the tv. showered. dressed. took vitamins. turned the ac up to 83. spritzed my favorite fragrance on the way out the door.

it was, by all appearances, a normal monday. the kind miami worships.

most people see productivity as a virtue. but in miami, it’s performance art. the city wakes early to look busy. blue-collar workers heading to job sites, wellness girls injecting nad+ before sunrise, realtors manifesting listings over celery juice. even the ocean seems caffeinated.

we call it hustle culture, but it’s closer to choreography. everyone moving in rhythm to some invisible metronome, pretending it’s their own idea.

and i’m part of it.

my body is too well-trained to disobey. i haven’t slept past 6:30 in years. not because i’m ambitious, but because i’m conditioned. i start rolling my sisyphean boulder on schedule. every. single. morning. the rock doesn’t care what day it is. neither, apparently, do i.

so there i was, standing beside my car in the half-light, cigarette in hand, still shaking off the ritual. i don’t smoke much, but i keep a pack for emergencies like this. that in-between dread that only coffee or combustion can soothe.

and that’s when i noticed something strange.

while i was getting dressed, the tv had been playing nothing but infomercials for life alert and identity theft protection, and adjustable mattresses. that lineup belongs to the graveyard shift, not the early risers. it’s the soundtrack of the post-party come-down for iii points goers this weekend, not the pre-office commute.

and then it hit me.

it’s not monday.

it’s sunday.

for the first time since the seventh grade, i had woken up and lived an entire morning under false pretenses.

i flicked the cigarette out beneath my brand-new oxblood docs, got in the car, and decided to find a coffee shop to metabolize my mistake.

by the time i reached panther coffee in mimo, miami’s whitewashed “historic district,” the one formerly known as the upper east side before the branding agencies had their way, the sun was up and the city was already humming. i ordered a cold brew from a barista who was clearly on her third hour of consciousness.

i told her my story. she didn’t care.

i told her i used to sling espresso myself, back when third wave was still a concept. she didn’t care.

i even confessed a small, harmless secret just to see if she’d react. she looked me dead in the eye and said, “i won’t remember this.”

and i believed her.

c’est miami.

the self-important engine that keeps everything and everyone in motion.

but the revelation stuck with me. i hadn’t just mistaken the day. i’d mistaken the performance for the point.

i’ve been living like every morning demanded output, even when no one was asking. sunday didn’t sneak up on me or rob me of some precious hours of sleep. i bulldozed through it. i honestly can’t sleep in anymore. i am jack’s broken alarm clock.

that’s the real horror of routine. it trains you to confuse movement with meaning.

miami rewards that confusion. it sells it in limited-edition sneakers and rise & grind playlists. the city never stops performing aliveness, and i never stopped auditioning.

so maybe the mistake was a kind of mercy. a glitch in the choreography. a reminder that not everything that wakes early has somewhere to be.

next sunday, i think i’ll sleep in. but the reality is i won’t.