When 5 a.m. met 1 a.m.

We were a cliché: she wakes at 5 a.m. for yoga; I do my best coding after midnight. Our home sounded like a railway station—grinder at dawn, keyboard at 1 a.m.—and the same argument at both times: “You don’t respect me.” The love was there; the sleep wasn’t.

A friend nudged me to speak to Pt. Dayaram Joshi. He didn’t try to change who we are. He asked us to try a focused stretch of days where he would steady the space and we would hold three rules: quiet hours from 10 p.m.–6 a.m., a handover hug when one sleeps and the other wakes (no phones), and two overlapping windows daily—15 minutes in the morning, 20 in the evening—that belong only to us.

By day four, we stopped fighting sleep and started protecting it. She moved her blender; I moved my late calls. The handover hug felt silly until it didn’t—it became our favorite minute. We now live in different clocks without living separate lives. Respect returned, then affection, then laughter before lights out.