On Keeping My Hours

My day has a shape, and you will learn it. When I wake, when I work, when I want silence and when I want you near. None of it is a secret. All of it is yours to notice.

Most people live by their own clock and expect everyone else to fit around it. You will not. You will set yours to mine. Not because I demand it every hour, but because a pet who knows my hours never needs to be told to wait, or to come, or to leave me be.

So watch. Notice when my messages come quickly and when they slow. Notice the hour I go quiet and the hour I reach for you again. That rhythm is me speaking without words, and I expect you to hear it.

Do not interrupt the hours that are mine. If I am working, your message can wait. If I have gone to bed, it can wait until morning. Patience at the right moment tells me more about you than any eager reply ever could.

And when my hours call for you, be there. Not late, not distracted, not with an excuse ready. Present. The whole point of learning my rhythm is that you arrive exactly when you are wanted, and not a minute before.

You will get it wrong sometimes. When you do, I will tell you, once. Then you will adjust, and the next day you will get it right.

Keep my hours, and you will find that you rarely need to ask what I want. You will already know.