For not being a morning person…

I am NOT a morning person. My parents will testify to that. Family lore has it that I’ve never been a morning person. And there’s facts and truths to back it up.

As a baby I’d go to sleep about the time Dad got up for work. When I’d run with Dad in elementary through high school during the summer, we’d get up early, but I’d go back to bed when we got home while he went on to work. Early morning seminary darn near killed me. It was more than once that my roommates woke up in the morning during college to find a cheese cake in the fridge that hadn’t been there when they went to bed because I’d feel like making one at 2am while I was studying. Dad joked that the 8 regulated hours of sleep I’d get as a missionary (10:30pm to 6:30am) would be the most sleep I’d ever get in my life (I surprisingly only woke up mad at my alarm clock once as a missionary). If left completely to my own devices, as I am every summer (one of the benefits of my chosen career) I’ll get my eight hours of sleep, but they’ll be the eight hours between 4am and noon. And they’ll be better than the eight hours I could get between 10pm and 6am during the school year.

Me. Not a morning person.

Mom isn’t much of a morning person either. So that’s probably where I get it from. Night is just so nice! It’s cool. It’s quiet. It’s less distracting (as long as there aren’t cheese cake ingredients in the house). I love my nights.

So then explain to me, why, left to my own devices of late, I’ve been going to bed before midnight (before 11pm some nights even!) and waking up between 5 and 7 in the morning?

I think part of it has to do with my garden. Mornings are still rather cool. So I wake up, go for a run, and then sit on my porch and enjoy looking at my plants and watching the hummingbirds come get breakfast at the feeder and read the scriptures. And then, and this is where it gets real weird, rather than go back to sleep, I actually get stuff done during the morning rather than doing it at night.

I think this is going to have to remain an unsolved mystery. We may never know why I’m suddenly sleeping like a “normal” person like my dad’s been telling me to do my whole life. I think I’ll just enjoy whatever comes.