The time: 5 a.m. Me: awake. The reason: none.

That’s right, I get up at five in the morning. For fun. I’m the morning person that everyone who has logic and morals dreads.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved getting up early. I know that everyone says “Oh, I can’t imagine you liked getting up early for school when you were little,” and “There’s no way you get up at six in the morning without an alarm clock,” but alas, I did and I do. For some reason, I’ve always been one to rise early and be perfectly awake within moments. In fact, if I wake up past eight, or even at eight, I’m more or less annoyed, having wasted a good two or three hours of the day. Not to sound like that person.

And I know what you’re thinking, why would I want to be up at 6 in the morning, right? What could I possibly be doing that early in the day to warrant me being awake? Well, the answer is simple: I do what I want.

That’s the beauty of being up so early when you don’t necessarily have to. I can choose to do whatever I want, even if that “whatever” is scrolling through social media on my phone, which is what I often end up doing. But even this, which seems like a waste of time, is nice to be able to do without anyone or anything pressing down on me to do something else, since it’s a time when most people are asleep.

Furthermore, mornings are something I’ve always found enjoyable. More often than not the lighting is soft and new, and there’s something special about being able to see the sun rise or be awake when there are still owls out, when the cicadas and birds are not yet stirring. And, forgive me for being cheesy, but mornings have a different feeling than any other time, and there’s something calm and cool about being awake while others aren’t, when the rest of the city, even, is still quiet.

While all of this must sound like I’m the calmest person you’ll ever meet in the morning, it’s quite the contrary. Just about the second I wake up, I’m awake awake. I’m a loud person in general, and unfortunately for my dad, who’s not a morning person, and basically anyone else who is around me in the morning, I’m just as loud in the morning as I usually am during the day.

Seriously, once I started to “talk” (yell) to my dad about opening his blinds to let in the light, and he immediately covered his ears and said, of course, “too early.” As someone who’s the complete opposite of him, I scoff at those words. Generally, “too early” for me ends at 4 a.m., but even that is kind of on the border. If I’m tired enough, or it’s a day that I’m going to school, I’ll go back to sleep, but if I’m awake enough I’ll simply just get up and do whatever. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who gets up, sees that it’s 5 a.m., and says “Heck yeah!”

I may be alone in my love for mornings and getting up early, but at the moment I’ll just continue to get up at 5 and 6 in the morning and use the time to plan to take over the world. That’s right. Get on my level.