3am until as late as I could possibly sleep.
Maybe 1am on an ‘early night’.
I can’t explain it, but I’m certain that somehow, somewhere, there is an image of me attached to the term ‘nightowl’ online. When I search for it, I find phrases like:
A person who tends to stay up until late at night.
A person who prefers to stay up late or who functions best during the nighttime hours.
A person who find it hard to get up early and likes to sleep in. Becomes more awake in the evening.
All apply. In fact, that last one probably has always been the most appropriate. I actually was MORE awake in the evening hours. Something would click right about 10pm and I would be hit with the urge to clean out the pantry, organize the guest room, file paperwork, write three chapters of a book or rearrange the kitchen.
But in the morning, please don’t talk to me until I am TRULY awake. And more so, please do NOT be the one to wake me. My small people and I joke that this picture was created specifically for me. I don’t know where it came from, but it makes them laugh. Me? I think it is only partially funny. The rest of me just feels like that.
However, in the past month something in me shifted. I hesitate to call it ‘age’, but I’m not sure there is any other explanation. I do know that I have definitely found myself far more tired in the evenings. My nighttime productivity has plummeted. That was my first sign. I began to fall asleep in front of my computer. I was unable to read before bed. Suddenly I was falling asleep at the absurd hour of 11pm. I think my body has been trying to tell me something.
Then came the morning shift.
I would wake up. During the Summer.
AT 7AM.
FOR NO REASON.
And now it is even earlier.
As I sit writing this, hot tea at my side, it is still dark outside. I was awake at 5am. And not a little awake….. but fully, wide awake, prepared to be productive. I have already made school lunches and prepped breakfast for the small people. I have poured their cereal (I wait to add the milk until they come downstairs). I have cut the fruit. I have set out the spoons.
I am ready.
I AM A MORNING PERSON, PEOPLE.
And these two? They have just started school. They now have the benefit of a mom who isn’t cranky first thing, who isn’t rushing around like a crazy person, but instead, who sits and talks to them while they have breakfast. And even better, who is awake enough to join them. I’ve always known breakfast is ‘the most important meal of the day’, but I haven’t been present enough to be a part of it the way I should.
Now, I have this. Smiling faces. Conversation. And beautiful time with them that I didn’t experience the same way because I’ve never been a ‘morning person’. I was quiet. I was ‘still waking up’. Now I can keep things moving.
If you had asked me if I would EVER be a morning person (at least before the age of 75) I would have quickly assured you otherwise. Yet, here I am. (though I will still NEVER go to the gym at 4:30am like my husband. That is a special kind of morning person crazy!)
And I’m happy. And productive. Who knew?
What say you? Morning person? Night person? And does it happen naturally? I’m fascinated….
Disclosure: I am proud to have a long-time working relationship with Kellogg’s, so it is natural in our family for breakfast to include one of many Kellogg’s cereals – in this post, you see Raisin Bran which is not only one of my kid’s favorites, but was (and is) one of mine.
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