Around 3 weeks ago, I got myself a new alarm clock, but was too hesitant to start using it right away. I don’t quite remember the last time I actually used one, since my phone has pretty much been my alarm for the past 10 years or so. Yesterday, I decided I no longer wanted to sleep with my phone in the room though, and so I put my new alarm to work instead.

The moment I added in the battery and heard its first tik-tok, the memories just came rushing back!

The first ones I remembered were those from the nights I used to stay over at my grandma’s house. I guess it was the only place I was allowed to spend the night at when I was younger.

I remember how fascinated I was that my grandmother would always fall asleep the minute her head rests on the pillow, while I used to stay up for hours, accompanied by the tiktoks of all the alarms in the room. She had so many of them. I can still hear some of them in my head as I write this. She also had this old loud clock in the hallway that used to strike every hour, and I’d lie there counting the number of strikes all through the night, wondering why sleep hasn’t visited me yet.

It’s funny how I so much resemble my grandmother now; I fall asleep as soon as I reach bed – sometimes even before. And I wonder if this has to do with age and the effort we exert during the day, or more with the increasing number of things our minds feel the need to hide away from, so they put us to sleep before we can even think? I wonder what exactly made me stay up thinking about back then, because when I think about that phase of my life now, all my mind does is go blank.

As I tried to find my way around using the different hands of the clock and figured how to set an alarm, I started thinking about the time when my sister decided to teach me how to read the clock and tell the time. She’d take me outside to another room while my family watched TV, and would slowly draw it all out for me then ask me questions to make sure I understand. I loved it. It felt special knowing I was on my way to learning what the grownups of the house seemed to understand so well. I’m not sure if it’s just me or if this is in fact something all the youngest siblings feel at some point, but I now realize so much of my life has been shaped by wanting to do things like “the grownups of the house.”

As the memories continued to flow through, I decided to keep the alarm around me all day, tiktok-ing its way through the night. I thought it would eventually drive me crazy and I’d get rid of it before it was even time for bed. But it didn’t. I loved it. Every tik and every tok made me a lot more conscious of time. Not in a oh-God-I-need-to-make-use-of-every-single-second sense, but I was just rather more aware of time as a blessing that I get to appreciate. Even if an hour passes by and all I do is stare at the ceiling, it’s still an hour of my life that I get to acknowledge. Because, how many hours of my life have really gone by without me being aware of their presence? I guess it made me conscious I’m hardly ever alone when time is always a constant.

My last realization as I set the alarm at night was: the snooze button.

The snooze button, for me, is more just a button. It’s a lifestyle. Literally. I’ve been snoozing my life away for as long as I can remember. How the older generations survived this long without the idea of a snooze button, is just beyond me.

I guess that’s the one thing I’ll slowly need to get used to. How different would my life be if I gave up ‘snoozing’ at some point? I really wonder. 🙂

Right now, I’m just super grateful for the existence of my new alarm clock and all the thoughts it’s bringing along. Alhamdulillah.

July 13, 2020