I have grown to loathe mornings. It’s a sad realization for me because there was a time that I loved them. I love watching the sunrise. The quiet of the world in the wee hours of dawn provides an uncanny amount of peace…the kind of peace that makes you think that maybe, just maybe, you want to live in the middle of nowhere in a cabin, kill and grow your own food, milk your own cow, give up indoor plumbing – THAT kind of peace. Then there is the incredible experience of watching the world wake up. In town, you don’t get that as much, but out of town you see birds waking and starting their day with song, dogs stretching, horses feeding, roosters sounding the sunrise, no one around you making unnecessary noise or reminding you of the days daunting tasks, complete privacy, seclusion, well, you get the picture. These are the reasons I love mornings. These are also the reasons I miss mornings.
However, there was one vital thing that happened in my morning-loving days that post-Doug isn’t happening as much. That is 8:00 p.m. pajama time and 9:00 p.m. (at the absolute latest!) bed time. I have to attain a bare minimum of 8 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being the next day. To operate at maximum potential I need 9 hours and to operate at full-fledged-energizer-bunny potential, we are looking at 10. I am not making this up. I have always been a person in need of much rest, and when I don’t get the sleep I need, I cry, I scream, I burst spontaneously into outrageous tirades, I kick things, I pout, I have a fuse that goes from 9 inches to a ½ inch, I cry some more and I follow that up with hysterical sobbing until I am so exhausted I have no choice but to crash into a sleep-deprived induced coma. It isn’t pretty. Those are all the reasons that, to prepare for a 5:00 am wake up call, I had an 8:00 p.m. pajama time.
Now, this is where it gets tricky. I fell in love with a night person. Not the kind who sort of stays up late, but the kind who WANTS to stay up all hours of the night, the kind of night owl who passes the early bird while she is eating breakfast on his way to his nest for the day, the kind who thinks that the right side of 4:30 a.m. is to be just going to bed. Now, you can imagine the trouble this has caused for us. I think the right side of 4:30 a.m. is about an hour before the alarm should be going off to start my day.
Doug has always taken afternoon classes and worked evening shifts when he could. That’s how much he doesn’t like the morning. So, how on earth do we reach some sort of compromise? I like seeing him, want to spend time with him and hate going to bed without him – but I can’t wait until well after midnight to do those things. I’d be the crankiest person you know. So we have been trying something a little different. Doug has 9 o’clock classes so we have lunch together. He also adjusted his schedule at work to get off a little earlier than 11 p.m. and we have some evening time. I, for my part, have started staying up until 10, even on some days 11, at night. This is huge people. Huge. In response though, I sleep until 7. Maybe 7:30.
It’s been a hard adjustment. I miss mornings. I miss being awake, fed, clothed, dry-haired and ready for work 30 minutes early. Doug misses the wee hours of the morning. He misses sleeping in and eating his first meal of the day at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Alas, neither of us misses those things enough to give up the few precious hours we get to actually spend together a day.
I am looking forward to the day he is done with school and I pray fervently that he gets a day job. Oh, or better yet: a morning job! Then, we can get in pajamas at 8:00 p.m. together and enjoy the birds chirping in the light of dawn. What does he ardently pray for you might ask? Well, I can’t be positive, but I am pretty certain the answer is babies. Then I will be forced to live on less sleep that I prefer and the night owl will be calling it a night as I am laying down for a quick nap between diapers…and my early bird days will be returning for all the wrong reasons…
However, there was one vital thing that happened in my morning-loving days that post-Doug isn’t happening as much. That is 8:00 p.m. pajama time and 9:00 p.m. (at the absolute latest!) bed time. I have to attain a bare minimum of 8 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being the next day. To operate at maximum potential I need 9 hours and to operate at full-fledged-energizer-bunny potential, we are looking at 10. I am not making this up. I have always been a person in need of much rest, and when I don’t get the sleep I need, I cry, I scream, I burst spontaneously into outrageous tirades, I kick things, I pout, I have a fuse that goes from 9 inches to a ½ inch, I cry some more and I follow that up with hysterical sobbing until I am so exhausted I have no choice but to crash into a sleep-deprived induced coma. It isn’t pretty. Those are all the reasons that, to prepare for a 5:00 am wake up call, I had an 8:00 p.m. pajama time.
Now, this is where it gets tricky. I fell in love with a night person. Not the kind who sort of stays up late, but the kind who WANTS to stay up all hours of the night, the kind of night owl who passes the early bird while she is eating breakfast on his way to his nest for the day, the kind who thinks that the right side of 4:30 a.m. is to be just going to bed. Now, you can imagine the trouble this has caused for us. I think the right side of 4:30 a.m. is about an hour before the alarm should be going off to start my day.
Doug has always taken afternoon classes and worked evening shifts when he could. That’s how much he doesn’t like the morning. So, how on earth do we reach some sort of compromise? I like seeing him, want to spend time with him and hate going to bed without him – but I can’t wait until well after midnight to do those things. I’d be the crankiest person you know. So we have been trying something a little different. Doug has 9 o’clock classes so we have lunch together. He also adjusted his schedule at work to get off a little earlier than 11 p.m. and we have some evening time. I, for my part, have started staying up until 10, even on some days 11, at night. This is huge people. Huge. In response though, I sleep until 7. Maybe 7:30.
It’s been a hard adjustment. I miss mornings. I miss being awake, fed, clothed, dry-haired and ready for work 30 minutes early. Doug misses the wee hours of the morning. He misses sleeping in and eating his first meal of the day at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Alas, neither of us misses those things enough to give up the few precious hours we get to actually spend together a day.
I am looking forward to the day he is done with school and I pray fervently that he gets a day job. Oh, or better yet: a morning job! Then, we can get in pajamas at 8:00 p.m. together and enjoy the birds chirping in the light of dawn. What does he ardently pray for you might ask? Well, I can’t be positive, but I am pretty certain the answer is babies. Then I will be forced to live on less sleep that I prefer and the night owl will be calling it a night as I am laying down for a quick nap between diapers…and my early bird days will be returning for all the wrong reasons…
I totally understand! Erik is such a night owl too, and I was begining to think it was just an Erik thing!
ReplyDelete