I opened my eyes and took in the room. It was the same one I’ve seen for the past year, the same dark blue curtains on my left, the same black frames on the wall I was facing, the same night stand holding my book and the half full glass of water. There was light coming in from under the door, the same way it always did when it was sunny outside, and there was the big closet which always had a door open, as if to say there’s nothing hiding there. There was comfort in the sameness and there was comfort in the newness. 

Lately I tried to leave my phone in another room for the night, but I brought it with me in bed last night. I was reading something and I told myself that I wanted to finish it before sleep. What I didn’t tell myself was that I was also going to spend some hours after finishing the piece scrolling, that I was going to close one app only to open another and continue numbing myself. Some days I was better at being honest with myself, some others a little lie was getting me through the day. 

I thought I never liked mornings much. Not because they were the beginning of something new, when the old was still setting in, but because they always started early. Sometimes, it was still dark when I had to peel off the blanket and let the warmth of my body meet the chill of the room. Some other times the brightness was trying to make its way through my eyelashes, but my eyelids were still carrying the whole weight of last night’s sleep. And then there were the mornings that started late.

We are four. We are not related by blood, we don’t come from the same side of the world and we don’t even share one skin colour among the four of us. We come in different shades, different fonts, different pitches of our voices. Our hair is different and what comes out of our hands is different too. Our smiles are the same though. They are all covering half of our faces, sometimes bold and most times shy.