In the morning

photo by unknown + ffffound on Le Love

I came into work early today because I am weird and can't sleep so I come into work at 7:30 when I don't need to be here until 9:00.

Anyways, the campus of the hospital is gorgeous early in the morning and it's before a lot of the main campus staff show up but the patients are usually up early for one reason or another. I was coming in, wearing my work clothes which is just like a game of dress-up trying to seem professional but never feeling really comfortable. Walking up to my building a man comes down the hill of his unit and I know he's a patient because he's just wearing sweat pants and a tie-dye t-shirt and his hair is all disheveled and his face is puffy with sleep and he waves and says "hi" groggily and I wave and say "hi" back.

For a split second I'm jealous that he gets to come here and be himself and wear pajamas and let his hair stay messy and stretch on the lawn of the hospital with no shame or worry. I need to come in and pretend to be a grown-up and pretend to do important things all day long and I have to follow a dress code even though no one sees us but the other RA's in the office because if our bosses let us wear casual clothes the jig is up. They would be admitting that yes, it's true that it's all a facade and that it doesn't matter what we look like because we don't have any in-person important responsibilities. So we wear nice business-casual clothes to sit in our annexed office and pretend to do important things.

I feel like a massive fake and I envy his realness and I think how we are all the same in the morning. We all have puffy disoriented faces and messy matted hair and are cozy and relaxed in our comfy worn out loose fitting clothing and we all want to stay that way all day. But some of us get dressed and put on the act while others don't and we look at them and think "they're crazy, look at their disheveled hair," and this is said with a tinge of resentment because though we'd never admit it, they are doing what we wish we had the balls to do sometimes.