I Started Waking Up at 6AM Because My Partner Changed Shifts. Now I Don’t Know How I Lived Before.

Ang daming oras na nawala lang pala, and I only noticed when someone else’s alarm went off before mine.

I didn’t plan to become a morning person. I just became someone whose partner started working Australian hours, which meant their alarm went off at 6AM Philippine time. And because we live in a space where one person’s alarm is everyone’s alarm, I started waking up too.

The first week was terrible.

Ang Hirap Pala Talaga Ng 6AM

I’m what you’d call a trentahin — one of those Filipinos stumbling toward thirty, working hybrid if we’re lucky, fully resigned to the Manila grind if we’re not. My routine was the same as most people I know: wake up at 9, maybe earlier if I had to go to the office and beat the traffic that never actually gets beaten. Clock in. Work. Clock out past 5. Jog or work out if I still had the energy, which was rare. Prep dinner. Scroll through my phone longer than I should. Sleep too late. Repeat.

It wasn’t a bad routine. It was just the routine. The kind you don’t question because everyone around you is doing the same thing, stuck in the same cycle, moving through the same tired hours.

But then 6AM happened. And because I was already awake, I figured I might as well do something. I made breakfast. Actual breakfast, not the instant coffee and pandesal I’d eat in front of my laptop. I went to the market while it was still cool outside, before the sun turned the streets into an oven. I started working earlier. And before I even realized it, I was done with my deliverables — and it wasn’t even noon.

The Part Where Everything Felt Different

There’s this strange guilt that comes with finishing your work early in Manila. Like you’re supposed to look busy, supposed to be stressed, because that’s what working here looks like. But that day, I just sat there, staring at my screen, realizing I had time. Actual, usable time. Time to work out. Time to run errands without rushing. Time to cook something that took longer than twenty minutes.

I know there are books about this. The 5AM Club, all those self-help things that make waking up early sound like the secret to success, productivity, a better life. I used to roll my eyes at them. But I wasn’t trying to join a club or optimize my life. I was just trying not to wake my partner by going back to sleep after their alarm went off.

And somehow, that accidental shift changed how the whole day felt.

By 10PM, I was exhausted. The good kind of exhausted, the kind where your body is tired because you actually did things, not because you spent nine hours stressed in traffic or staring at a screen, mentally drained but physically restless. I’d drop asleep without scrolling, without thinking too much, without that low-level anxiety that usually kept me up.

Yung Oras Na Akala Mo Wala Ka Na

There’s a study — I forget where I read it, maybe it was a TomTom traffic index or something similar — that said Metro Manila commuters lose more than a hundred hours a year just sitting in traffic. A hundred hours. That’s more than four full days of your life, gone, just trying to get somewhere. And that’s just traffic. That’s not counting the hours lost to bad sleep, to waking up late and rushing, to feeling like you’re always behind even when you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.

I’m not saying waking up at 6AM fixes all of that. I’m not even saying it fixes anything, really. But it gave me something back. Not control, exactly — because you can’t control traffic, or your work schedule, or how fast time moves when you’re trying to keep up. But maybe just a little more room. A little more quiet before the day starts demanding things from you.

I still don’t wake up at 5AM. I’m not that person. But 6AM? I can do 6AM now.

And the strange part is, I don’t feel like I’m waking up early anymore. I feel like I’m just waking up when I’m supposed to. Like maybe the version of me that slept until 9 wasn’t resting — I was just postponing the day until I had no choice but to start it.

A personal essay by Juno dela Cruz for BantayDaily PH.