Tuesday in Texas - Morning and Night

Are you a morning person, or a night owl?  

Yes!

It is somewhat amazing and a little bit scary the things that you learn about yourself when you take the time to ponder such a seemingly simple and straightforward question.  My instinctive answer is that I am both.  In trying to reconcile that somewhat oxymoronic state of being, I learned some things about my own discipline and routines as well as my attitudes toward them.

On the surface, I have to be both a morning person and a night owl to get done first those things that I have to do and then those that I want to do.  In an ideal world, I would not need sleep and would have a full twenty four hours in every day to accomplish all of the tasks before me.  Sadly, this is not my world; I need sleep, perhaps even more sleep than most people.  Do I get enough sleep?  No.  Am I doing anything consciously to remedy that situation?  No.  But, I have had a wicked cold or something for the past week that has forced me to get more rest than I normally do.  I'm sure there is a lesson in that somewhere.  LOL.

So, back to morning person or night owl...

My husband is going to call me a liar when he reads this, but I am going to say that I am a morning person; but admittedly, that statement comes with a serious caveat.  I am a morning person IF there is no external structure imposed on my morning process.  If I don't HAVE to be up at a certain time, prepare meals, get dressed and out of the house, then I am happy to get up and be a part of the day's unfolding rhythm.  I want to awaken as gently as the sun does, slowly opening my eyes and my spirit to newness and possibilities that each new day brings.

My most creative self flourishes in the quiet calm of the morning.  This is the part of me that is free to think and wonder and imagine and dream.  It is the part of me that has eluded my  inner critic, who is apparently not a morning person.  So, if i get up early, I can accomplish many things before she meets the day and me and talks me down from my dreams.  

One of my favorite things to do in the morning is to write.  I always start my days with morning pages.  This writing, for me, is the gateway to the more creative endeavors - blog posts, poetry, essays, even a few stories here and there...as long as I am not bothered by anyone or anything.  The key here is for me to not get derailed by structure.  This is the time of day where I go off in my own little world, a world that really does revolve around me.   You may be wondering how often a total escape to this place happens...unfortunately, not often enough.  Work, especially two days of a 7:30am class, and church choir on Sunday mornings make for a life totally driven by external structure.  See, it is not my fault that I am perceived as not being a morning person; it is the world conspiring against the needs of my innermost being.  LOL!

Which brings me to the night owl part...

Honestly, I am a night owl by necessity.  Late at night is when I DO things.  I clean.  I cook.  I do laundry.  I grade papers.  I practice the piano.  I process photos.  By nighttime, my brain is tired.  Most of the things that I do at night are routine.  They don't require creative energy.  As long as I have a concrete task to accomplish, I can and will see it through, even if that means staying up into the wee hours of the night.  I am just not generative during the  nighttime hours, probably because my inner critic is now wide awake and, by late in the day,  has gathered a whole bunch of fodder on which to feed!

Someday I will retire and will have the luxury of finding and living the daily rhythm that truly works best for my body and spirit.  Maybe I'll become a real morning person, or perhaps a hardcore night owl.  Who knows?  Until then, I'll rise early, do what I can before the grip of the world's demands take hold, and on my way out the door check the oil pot to make sure that it is filled so that I can burn the midnight oil when I get home.

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*