Monday, October 5, 2015

Monday in Michigan - The Reluctant Morning Person

by Tracey G




When Kris and I talked about some fun topics to write about, and "are you a morning person or night owl?" came up out of the pool of ideas, we agreed it would be a fun thing to think on and write about.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Night Owl, always have been ever since I was a kid. Love the night, I seem to come up with the best stuff then, even if it's not feasible to do any of the things I come up with during the wee hours, lol. I have always been the up until 3 a.m. person, and happily. I could stay up working on this, that or the other thing, or reading and so forth. If it wasn't a noisy project and likely to wake Harry up, I'd probably bake or cook in those hours too, lol.

That all changed when Harry started school. Say hello to forced-into-being-a-morning-person!

 There's a serious conflict between going to bed at 3 a.m. and waking up at 5:30 a.m. It just doesn't work - oh sure, in the short term it's ok - not fabulous, but doable, long term though? Um, no. Not a good thing. Even with "enough" sleep (which I've yet to find that magic number of hours - you know, the one where you're supposed to just jump out bed feeling refreshed and whatnot...) I've done some stupid things in my morning stupor, that's for sure. So, I now make sure everything is set out and ready to go the night before to help ease the morning mess-ups. Honestly, some days it's amazing I leave the house with Harry in the car and not drive to school without him, lol.

But getting up at 5:30 a.m. now means I have to have a reasonable bedtime and I have a hard time with that! It's like my body and brain rebel against the numbers on the clock. I may be dead tired, falling asleep in my chair, but it feels wrong to be tired and ready to go bed at 9:30, lol. My Night Owlness served me well when Harry wasn't in school - the only time for me to get some "me" time, as in time to work on things I want to - like my photos etc, was after he went to bed. So, my time started about 9 when all was said and done and he was asleep for the night (for sure, lol). That's not a lot of time to accomplish everything you want to, providing you go to bed at 11. 2 measly hours??? Soooo, up til 3 solved that issue, lol.

Now though, things are flip-flopped - I have the time (usually) while he's in school, during the day. I'm still trying to get used to that, as I said it feels like my brain and body rebel against that I now need to get to bed early. That it's OKAY to go to bed early, because you have the whole "day" tomorrow to have your "you" time. But I forget that come night time. It's a totally weird place to be! I start watching the clock, and counting down the minutes before I need to go to bed (provided that I didn't fall asleep while getting Harry to bed and reading the bedtime story, which, happens quite frequently, lol.), like bedtime's become a sentence of some sort, lol. It's crazy. I feel like the little kid when they're told it's bedtime, "aw mom, just a little longer? Pleeeeeeaaaseee??". Only I'm the kid AND the mom, lol. It's hard to police yourself sometimes!!


But, there's another side to this as well...there's a part of me who enjoys being up early and having lots of time - instead of getting up later in the day, like at 9, lol. It's weird, I'm in a weird place! Love being a Night Owl, yet, there's that draw to Morning Personness... But it's not enough of a draw that it will make me go to bed early on a non-school night, lol. There's still that "woo hoo" feeling - I can read late! I can watch movies late! I can work on photos, late! LOL Yep, I'm still a Night Owl, forced into being a Morning Person. *sigh* 

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