You woke up when it was still dark. You didn't even want to.
I thought that only happened on Christmas. I used to shake you awake, remember? I'd stand at the door in my socks vibrating because the sun wasn't up yet and something amazing was down the stairs. You'd groan and pull the blanket over your head and I never understood how you could sleep through a morning that important.
Now you set an alarm. In the cold. For a television.
You put on shoes in the parking lot and there are so many people and everybody is quiet and a little mean and holding coffee. You keep looking at your phone. You keep saying "if we split up we can grab two." Grab. Like it's a race. Your face is doing the same thing it does when the light turns yellow.
I want to know something. When you get the big box in the car, when you finally have the thing that made you wake up in the dark, does your chest go warm and light like it used to? Does it feel like the morning I thought it would be?
Because you don't look like you won. You look tired, and you look like you're already thinking about the next store.
Here's the part I keep waiting for. On the way out, there was a whole sky doing pink and orange over the parking lot, the good kind, the kind we would've stopped for. And you walked right under it with your arms full.
I still stop for those. Do you think, next time, you could stop for one too?
I'll wait up.