Sleep has always been one of the low priority things in my life. Throughout my childhood, teens, and even now, I do not give the maintenance of a proper sleep schedule any respect.
I feel like shit right now.
Two days straight of sleeping at 3:30am until 12:00pm and the sudden return to a more regular 12:00am to 7:30am has left me wrecked. Can't think straight. Foggy mind. Have wanted to go back to bed since I got up.
So, how did this all get started?
Thank you, TV
It began young during summers when I stayed up until 3:00am to watch reruns of TV shows after 12:00am during the summer. I think I got hooked on Caroline in the City, Star Trek: Voyager, and Angel during that time. All those shows started at around 1:30am to 2:00am. The worst part is that during high school, I maintained by summer TV addiction and kept sleeping at 2:00am just so I could religiously rewatch Angel.
Thanks, Mom
Where was mommy and daddy in all of this?
Mostly awake with me. We're a family of night owls. It's always been a family effort. Not much has changed over the years and some people have only stayed up later and later -- or is it "earlier and earlier" when you go past 5am?
School, College, Fail
A lot of time in class was spent "sleeping". Never actually fell asleep, just rested my head during breaks and during class. Classes were spent copying notes from the board like a drone and never actually absorbing information. Come to think of it, that contributed to almost flunking out of college. I continued the copying minus absorbing, then stopped showing up for class altogether. Even when I got back on my feet, I continued the copy-only studies and skimmed the notes at home. Wow, that was a waste of time and doubling up of work.
In college, I did finally start getting real sleep in class though. My final year included a 3 hour long lecture at 6:00pm and there are passages in my notes that say, "missed 1 hour, sleeping". It took graduate school to change my habits.
Back to Work and the Magical Hour
Now out of school and into the work life, nothing's really changed. Every effort to keep a consistent sleep schedule 7 days a week has ended in failure starting every Friday. To be honest, I've gotten so used to staying up to 3:00am that it's hard to give up.
Nothing productive gets done past the hours of 12:00pm, there's just a magic to staying up when most other people are asleep. During the summer when the windows are open, there is a beautiful silence heard outside. The illusion is only destroyed when drunks from the nearby bars walk by singing and screaming. That and hearing your neighbors having some adult "fun" outdoors or with windows open.
Acceptance and Back to Denial
I'm a night owl and the world just isn't built around my kind. But here's to another week of trying to sleep earlier and no longer wrecking my body for nearly 30 years straight anyways.
