Saturday, November 29, 2008

Night owl

Last night, only a couple of nights into the holiday weekend, I read until nearly one o'clock in the morning. Today I got up at six-thirty to let the dogs out, then we all went back to bed until almost ten. This is the kind of schedule I naturally gravitate to, the schedule my body fights against during the entire work week.

Even if I go to bed at ten o'clock and sleep a full eight hours, getting up at six in the morning is torture for me. Even if I get to work at eight-thirty, I don't wake up fully until late morning. I can talk and I can work, but I'm doing it on autopilot.

This is on my mind because it's after eleven as I write this. I'm recognizing the weekend trend of staying up late on Friday night and even later on Saturday, only to go to bed early on Sunday and lie awake for hours. With this being a long weekend, I'm postponing bedtime later each consecutive night, and I know that Monday will be a day of reckoning.

Part of me is sitting here with pursed church-lady lips, disapproving of my lack of discipline. Another part of me is pumping a fist skyward and shouting, "Yessss! I love this time of the night."

When I think about all the things I'll do when I eventually retire from work, one of the things that excites me most is the idea of being able to dispense with the alarm clock and wake up only when I'm good and ready. In fact, I think about that a lot. I didn't realize how much I think about it until I got all the way down to this fifth paragraph and it started sounding familiar. A quick little blog search shows me it's only been eight days since I wrote wistfully about waking up without an alarm.

So, now we all know that my memory is slipping. When the day arrives that I can sleep late every morning, I hope I can remember to appreciate it.

4 comments:

  1. Okay...I'm one of those awful morning people, awake at the first hint of dawn. Fully functioning and happy to greet the day. Mike is more like you and it was hard for me to learn to turn down my own volume until he had, literally, downed an entire pot of coffee. I wish you joy in your future retirement routine! Carmon

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  2. I naturally wake rather early but I so appreciate not having conversation and deep thought until much, much later in the morning.

    I do have to say, I've so enjoyed these past few years where I rarely have to set the alarm. It's been bliss!

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  3. juat arw so glad you are staying up blogging

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  4. I'm just like you and now that I am retired I go to bed late and get up late. Someday it seems the day is only a few hours long and it's time to do evening things again! Everyone knows not to call me before 1:00 pm! When I actually get up early I feel like I've accomplished something. If you look at my blog you will see I have been able to read a LOT!

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