A bird of a different feather

So most of you who know me IRL know that I am a night owl. A bona-fide stay up until 6am and sleep until 2pm night owl. I don't usually exhibit this behavior, as it gets in the way with life and also causes problems with Corey because HE is a morning bird. A bona-fide wake up by 6 am every day morning bird. I usually go to bed at midnight and get up around 10am.

So when Corey was gone, before I headed out to London to meet him, I did my usual thing when he is away. I stayed up every night, sleeping in the mornings. I have a tendency to fight sleep anyway (I must have been a real joy as a baby) and I don't like going to an empty bed at night, so I wait until I am exhausted and fall in. Well, folks, that isn't London time. that is basically the antithesis of London time...more like China time. So in London I was pretty screwed up. This wasn't helped by the fact that we would go sight-see in the mornings and then in the afternoons we would go back to the hotel room where Corey would get on the phone and the laptop and work on U.S.-time. I would prop myself up on the bed and knit and watch TV, but when he was on the phone, the TV volume had to be off. And I was trying to make progress on a garter stitch scarf....lets' just say I was taking a lot of naps.

So when I got home I got back on that China schedule the first night instead of going to bed early when I was tired, and then the next day realized I needed to take the bull by the horns and force myself into a semi-normal sleep schedule. I had an NIN meeting Saturday, Corey was coming home that evening, and this staying up all night crap had to stop. So I was awake from 3pm Thursday until 5:30 pm Friday and woke up at 4am Saturday.

Saturday I went to bed at 8:30, which kinda freaked Corey out. he was still up, for once. last night I went to bed at 10pm, but still was awake at 3, then tossing until 4, Tossed some more until 5, and decided to just get up. Corey was up and out of the shower when I stumbled into the bright light and this whole display of morning bird activity is freaking him out a little, I know. In the ten years of our marriage, there have been VERY few times that I've been fixing myself breakfast as he left for work. And I am not sleeping as long. Maybe I am sleeping better, I don't know, but I'm not getting and don't even want my usual 10 hours.

I'm going to try to keep this up. I get more done when I get up earlier, even if I am awake the same amount of time. I don't know why that is. Part of it is because the world is set on early-bird time and if you need to interact with the rest of the world to get things done, it is easier if you aren't getting up mid to late morning.

I do so hope when I have children, that they are morning birds. I will encourage that behavior as much as humanly possible because the world is easier for morning birds. I used to have to get up at 6am for work and I hated it. I rarely went to bed before 11:30 back in my working days. Up by 6 or 7. Slept in the weekends and had to reset every Monday. Yuck. I don't know how much of this is nature vs nurture, but I plan to nurture the morning bird tendency as much as possible. I know my parents tried it with me...but out of four kids, three of us are bona-fide night owls. Well, make that two. Right now I am a bird of a different feather. And I hope the genetic mutation is permanent.