A Night Owl that Became a Lark
There’s something magical about staying awake: when the blissful quiet of your solitary existence wraps warmly around you.
The trouble is that if I stayed up until 1 a.m. watching Netflix, writing, or otherwise playing around every night like in college, then I would be dead the next day. I could stay up past midnight because my classes started late, and my responsibilities were limited to pretty much just classwork.
College was almost five years ago. Classwork has since been replaced by grading, hustling for freelance jobs, paying bills, planning lessons, sending emails, the list goes on. There is a lot to get done in a day, and I can no longer wait until 8 a.m. to slide out of bed.
I’m not saying that it literally takes me from 6 or 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. to complete my to-do list. I’m just saying that I’ve adjusted to a different work schedule since college.
So…what changed?
I used to do my best work at night because everyone else around me was working too. My college roommate and I always put our desks right across from each other, so we literally worked back-to-back, usually during the same hours. I would go to the library in the evenings for a change of scenery, and it would be just as busy — if not busier — after dark.
Nowadays, rather than popping out of bed and packing a granola bar, I have to eat a substantial breakfast, put on makeup, and drive to work. Put that on top of starting work at 8:30 a.m., and I have no choice but to get up early.
Of course, there are days where I don’t teach at all: where I don’t have to drive to campus. But if I start waking up at a certain hour, my body will almost automatically adjust to that hour. So even when I don’t set an alarm, my body still assumes that I’m on work time. I hated this when I started teaching early classes because I wanted to take advantage of my off time to sleep.
But keep in mind: this all happened during the fall — when the sun rose around the same time I woke up for work. There was something kind of charming about rising with the sun — about going out to my car when no one else was out. About driving east and actually watching the sun come up over the world.
A teacher has an almost never-ending to-do list. So imagine my delight when I began completing most of my duties by mid-afternoon. The day was more than half over, but so were all the things I needed to do.
That means that I can actually take my nights off to do the things I enjoy. After 8 p.m., I always put away my schoolwork and take out my hobbies: fiction writing, sewing, reading a good book. This effectively winds me down well enough to sleep, so I can do it all again tomorrow.
I’ve only had this kind of schedule for half a year, but it’s already made me dread sleeping past 8:30. Don’t worry — I still indulge in sleeping in every so often. I’ve just discovered that I need the sunlight to get my important work done, and the sleepy moonlight warmly lulls me into my hobbies.
