The house is quiet before anyone else is up. That hour used to feel like mine. I could open the file, make a little progress, and tell myself I was being a good steward of the morning.

Sometimes I still do that. Then a chair scrapes, a bowl hits the table, and I realize I have already left the room I meant to be in.

I don’t think they need a better version of me later. They need whoever is here now.

Before the house wakes

I like the dark kitchen. The light over the sink. The feeling that I can finish one thing before anyone asks me for anything.

The problem is I start treating that hour like a runway. If I can just get a little further, I’ll come to breakfast lighter. I rarely do. I come to breakfast still thinking about the last line I didn’t write.

Running helps more than the extra commit. I go out, I pray without an audience, and I come back more able to stay. When I skip that and go straight to the laptop, I am already gone.

Presence at the table

I’m good at looking like I’m at breakfast. I nod. I ask a question. Meanwhile I’m composing a reply, or turning over a bug, or deciding what the morning still owes me.

I notice when other people do this, and I still do it here.

Putting the phone face down is embarrassingly basic. So is waiting another minute before I offer a lesson nobody asked for. Breakfast is not a meeting.

The work is smaller than that. Stay. Hear the thing about the dream, or the cereal, or whatever they actually said.

What I put down

Nothing I ship matters more than becoming someone my children can trust. I already know that. I still leave.

When I catch it, I try to skip the lecture. Close the laptop. Put down the phone. Ask the question I skipped. Come back the same way I come back to a notebook: without making it a whole crisis.

I will miss it again. Probably today. Presence doesn’t go in a commit. I’m trying to notice when I walk away from it anyway.