For a lot of my life, I have been the kind of person that stays up all night and sleeps during the day. For the past few months, I have been going to sleep early and waking up early. My job takes a lot out of me, so even though I don’t *have* to go to bed until ten or so, I find myself getting sleepy at about eight. Reminds me of a story that my dad told me when he went to Daily Franklin training in the ’90s. Guy says, “Every morning, I wake up the whole family at 4 am for a planning meeting.” Audience is baffled. One member says, “how do you get your kids to wake up that early?” Guy says, “I put them to bed at 8.” Audience member says, “How do you get your kids to go to bed at 8?” Guy says, “I GET THEM UP AT FOUR IN THE MORNING.” Point taken. It surely worked for me.
I finished work at 4 yesterday, and I don’t have to be back until Monday at 11:59 pm. In my infinite wisdom, I thought, “I’m going to go to bed for a few hours, then wake up and try to stay up all night as a trial run.” I fell asleep on the couch at about 8, and didn’t wake up until 4. So much for that little experiment. I’m going to try napping several times today and see if I can get my mojo going for tonight. It shouldn’t be that hard… I mean, it’s my natural schedule, right?
Well, maybe not so much anymore. I am an annoying morning person now… and by that, I mean that I come in to work and EXPLODE the place with laughter when other people are still wiping sleep out of their eyes and telling me to go the fuck away with their eyes. I’m naturally outwardly friendly anyway, but the difference is what I see in myself. My energy level actually is higher in the morning, and I never would have noticed if I hadn’t been forced to find out. I also don’t have a lot of the morning problems that plague most Houstonians. I live five miles from my office, and can get there by surface streets. I rarely, if ever, get caught in traffic. It is amazing how cutting out road rage keeps me happy.
When we were still house hunting, we looked at houses in old Sugar Land, off Hwy. 90, and I am blessed beyond all measure that we stopped thinking that was a good idea. My friends who commute look ragged when they get to work, much less at the end of the shift.
And Dana. Oh, my God. I could not have done this without Dana. Because we only have one car, she takes me every morning and picks me up every afternoon. Even if there *was* road rage involved, I wouldn’t have to deal with it. The most I have to do in the morning is play with my iPhone while she drives. We’ve gotten into the Raw Comedy station on Pandora, because we find that if our brains are engaged, it works better than music at distracting us from the annoyance of getting stuck behind a bus. There are also five, count ’em, FIVE school zones around my house, so we can only go 35 miles an hour for about a third of the trip.
Yeah. Comedy helps.
My new schedule will not have school zones on either end, because I won’t get out of work until 9 AM. However, I am paranoid about getting hit by a drunk driver. Besides the possibility of physical injury, it seems most of the people in my neighborhood go to the “Just Don’t Give a Fuck” insurance company.
So, not problem-less, just different problems than I would face during the day.
It reminds me of when Dana was working nights at the airport. I drove her at 2:30 every morning, and we’d stop at a 7-11 to get coffee and snacks on the way. The clerk was lovely, an indian woman that I still refer to as “She.” I am not sure that’s her name, but that’s what it sounded like when she gave it to me. I noticed that She marked time by when we would come in, because we arrived at the same time each day. Dana always wanted energy drinks and sandwiches, but I am the coffee junkie. She made sure that there was always fresh Brazilian Bold- literally, she would make it ten or fifteen minutes before we got there- and would make sure that the Splenda, marshmallows, and Stok coffee shots were full. In such a small way, she made my life easier, and I was so grateful. So grateful, in fact, that when I went to a soft skills training on customer service, I was asked to provide an example, and this is the one I gave.
It occurs to me that the thing that might make my transition to nights easier is finding a Houston version of “She.” But a “She” archetype does not exist. You create them. You become the person they want to take care of, and they do. I have to believe that by laughing, joking, making her smile, that I made a positive difference in her life, too.
It’s the comfort I have that I couldn’t express my gratitude properly in the middle of the night.
Stories That Are All True 