Get Ready

The world taught you to get ready
before it ever asked you what for.

You wake up
and start the coffee
like a quiet agreement
you don’t remember signing.

Steam rises.
Time begins.

You catch yourself in the mirror
for half a second
just long enough
to see toothpaste meet your teeth
but not long enough
to ask who you are today.

Dry your face.
Get dressed.
Get ready.

It’s time to take on the day.

You grab your bag,
step outside,
lock the door behind you
as if you’re sealing something in
or keeping something out.

It sounds easy, right?

But somewhere between
the first sip of coffee
and the turn of the key in the ignition,
you realize

you’ve been holding your breath.

Again.

That quiet exhale
you didn’t plan
slips out of you
like a confession no one heard.

You sit in the car.
Hands on the wheel.
A small pep talk
whispered into the space
between who you are
and who you need to be next.

Get ready.

The drive happens without you.
Muscle memory.
Thousands of mornings
stacked on top of each other
until movement becomes ritual
and ritual becomes autopilot.

You arrive.

Papers wait for you.
Stacked neatly
like expectations
you never agreed to carry.

Get ready.

The clock ticks.
Loud enough to be felt
but not loud enough
to be questioned.

Get ready.

Lunch comes
and goes
like a pause
you forgot to take.

Get ready.

Now you’re in the pick-up line,
engine idling,
watching time stretch
between other people’s lives.

Get ready.

Dinner.
Dishes.
Water running
like a loop you can’t quite break.

Get ready.

Surely now
it must be time for rest.

But even in stillness
there is a whisper—

Tomorrow is already waiting.

Get ready.

And somewhere
beneath the rhythm of it all,
beneath the breath you keep forgetting to take,
a quieter question lives:

What if you stopped getting ready
and started arriving instead?