I woke up the other morning at my usual time for a weekday, sometime around 5:30. I don’t like that I have to get up that early, but my body has adjusted, and I don’t even need an alarm clock anymore.
Like I usually do, I headed right for the computer. I don’t even try to pretend to be anything other than obsessed with e-mail and social networking. It’s easier to admit you are a geek than to make up excuses to deny the fact.
So I logged into Facebook and started checking out what my friends had posted through the night. Thanks to the aforementioned geekdom and my big family and assorted other connections, I have a lot of friends on there.
At the top of my list was a post from one of the college students I knew from my last job. I like keeping in touch with them for many different reasons.
She also had just woken up. However, her status bemoaned being up “in the middle of the night.”
I had to laugh. I had totally forgotten that my usual wakeup time is an ungodly hour for so many people. I had forgotten that my college self would never believe that 5:30 a.m. would be a familiar time of day in the future.
I always wanted to be that guy who stayed up all night when I was younger. I had some college friends who regularly stayed up to see the sunrise. I could never handle that, even though I would stay up pretty late.
As I have gotten older, I kept telling myself I would stay true to my night owl roots. When I had the chance to stay up late, I tried to take advantage of it to the fullest.
But even that has started to change. When the clock would hit midnight on weekends, I would merely see that as an opportunity to pack in one more hour of fun.
Now I start to think twice and count in my head how much sleep I could get before I had to drag myself out of bed. I calculate the possibility of a nap and wonder how that will affect my sleep the following night.
I don’t like this new part of me, especially since I now have a kid who has mastered the art of sleeping in.
I’m jealous when I see her door still closed at 10 a.m. on the weekend. I really want to be under the covers at that time, but I need to make sure I get my morning walk in and worry about being available if Maria has to work or take care of some errand.
The best chance I have of sleeping at 10 a.m. is if I get back into bed after a busy morning for a nap. And don’t think the thought hasn’t occurred to me on a regular basis.
The worst part is that I have started to accept all of this. When I used to wake up early, I could blame it on parenting and spending time with my child. Now I don’t have that excuse anymore, and I’m just a guy who accomplishes things at 5:30 in the morning.
At least that clears up the rest of the day for me to nap.
5:30 IS too early! I work from 9-6, and I’ve had my alarm set to 7:50 for quite a while now. Not that I get a good 7 1/2-8 hours of sleep, mind you. I’ve had the worst sleep habits for SO long…and ingesting caffeine is a big contributor to that problem. I read an article not too long ago that talked about how just sleeping enough can help you lose weight naturally, by allowing your hormones to work the way they’re supposed to. And I already know that I’m much more mentally on my game when I get enough sleep. So, I recently (in the past couple of months) stopped drinking any caffeinated soda after 2:30 PM. Now, I find myself zonking out at around 10:30 PM now. But I still fight the urge to sleep. I’m just so used to doing whatever I want; the fun of staying up late and seeking entertainment on TV or the internet is a seductive lure. And the fact that I’m not a napper (I have great difficulty taking naps) makes it that much worse when I don’t heed my body’s attempts to pass out. Anyways, staying up late is overrated, being a responsible adult that wakes up early is where it’s at, yada yada yada….