By Divya Munjal

At exactly 9:25 am, while I was standing in the kitchen stirring vegetables that refused to soften, my brain did something strange.

It panicked.

You are late. Work starts at 9:30 am.

The thought arrived so convincingly that for a split second I believed it. My body even reacted. A small rush of alertness. A tightening in the chest. That familiar “move faster” signal.

Then reality stepped in.

I am not working. I have not been working for the past one and a half months. There is no laptop waiting to be opened. No inbox quietly collecting unread emails. No meeting link blinking on the screen, counting down the minutes. No calendar reminders about to pop up. No colleagues expecting a response. No sense of the day about to officially begin.

The morning does not shift gears at 9:30 am anymore. It simply continues, steady and ordinary.

And just like that, the urgency dissolved.

What replaced it was not relief. It was not laughter either.

It was a strange emptiness, as though something had briefly switched on inside me and then had nowhere to go.

How a clock time can live inside your body

We talk about habits as if they are small things. Drink water. Walk daily. Sleep early. But some habits do not stay small. They settle deep into your system.

For years, 9:30 am carried weight. It was not merely a time. It was the hour when my day became purposeful and I became accountable.

Before 9:30 am, I was preparing. After 9:30 am, I was responsible.

When you live like that for a long time, your body does not wait for conscious instructions. It knows. It recognises certain hours like it recognises old friends.

So at 9:25 am today, my brain followed an old script. It did not check whether the job still existed. It simply assumed, as it had done for years, that I had somewhere important to be.

The surprising part is not that the thought appeared. The surprising part is what I felt after correcting it.

Busy but not meaningful

Let me be honest. My days are not empty.

I cook. I clean. I organise. I respond to people. I take care of responsibilities that do not come with titles but still matter. From the outside, I am occupied.

Yet, something has been slightly off, and I could not name it until this morning.

I am busy, but I am not always building towards something.

When I was working, even the stressful days had direction. There were decisions to make. Problems to solve. Emails that required thinking. Outcomes that depended on my input. By the end of the day, I could point to something and say, that moved because I showed up.

Now I can complete ten tasks and still feel like the day evaporated.

Nothing is wrong. Nothing is dramatic. It is just… flat.

That emptiness at 9:25 am was not about missing my job. It was about missing the feeling of moving towards something.

The awkward middle stage

One and a half months is not very long. It is long enough for the excitement of a break to settle. It is long enough to adjust to slower mornings. But it may not be long enough to redefine who you are without a role attached to you.

For years, I was not just an employee. I was a point of contact. A decision maker. Someone people reached out to. My calendar had some weight. My hours had labels.

When that disappears, you do not instantly become someone else. You enter an in-between stage.

You are free. But you are also undefined.

And being undefined can feel unsettling, especially if you are used to structure.

At 9:25 am, my brain briefly stepped back into a version of me that was clear, directed and needed. When it realised that version was paused, it did not know where to place the energy. That is the emptiness I felt.

What I actually miss

It would be easy to say, I miss work. But that is not entirely accurate.

I do not miss constant pressure. I do not miss overflowing inboxes. I do not miss tight deadlines.

What I seem to miss is the stretch.

The mental stretch. The feeling that my brain is being used to its full capacity. The sense that my effort connects to something larger than the immediate task.

Chores use time. Meaning uses you.

There is a difference.

The 9:25 am moment exposed that difference gently but clearly.

Maybe emptiness is not a problem

We are quick to label emptiness as negative. We assume it means dissatisfaction or regret. But what if emptiness is simply unused space?

When my brain prepared for work this morning, it gathered focus. It gathered alertness. It gathered drive.

Then it had nowhere to send it.

That gap felt hollow, but it was also revealing. It showed me that I still want engagement. I still want something that pulls me forward.

Not because I cannot sit still. Not because I am restless. But because I am wired to contribute.

Writing a new 9:25 am

The interesting thing is this: The same 9:25 am that once meant “log in” can now mean “lean in”.

Instead of rushing to a meeting, I can choose to build something else. An idea. A piece of writing. A project that demands consistency.

The old reflex is not an instruction to go back. It is proof that my mind values direction.

Maybe the question is no longer, why did that thought appear today?

Maybe the real question is, what do I want my mornings to stand for now?

This morning my brain forgot I had resigned.

A few seconds later, I remembered that I have the freedom to redefine what 9:25 am means.

And perhaps that strange emptiness was not a void after all.

Perhaps it was space waiting to be filled with something that feels meaningful again.