Night Owl vs. Early Riser Paul
I used to enjoy sleeping. I have early memories of traveling to my grandparents, kneeling on the floor in the backseat of the family car. I would be all curled up with my head on my folded arms resting on the car seat as I drifted off to the low rumble of the car engine and tires rolling along the highway. I didn’t have to worry about getting up or being responsible for anything. Nor did I worry about a stiff neck or pinched nerve like I do today. I just enjoyed sleeping.
I usually had a hard time getting to sleep, but once I was asleep I could easily stay asleep 10 or 12 hours. In fact when I was about 19 I told all my friends we should actually have 30 hour days. That way I could stay up doing things I really wanted to do until I got really sleepy, then sleep for 12 hours. The only guy that commented who was almost 10 years older than me, said, “Yeah. I used to think that…”
As I got older sleeping got harder. I didn’t like how the world ran on it’s early morning schedule: Especially when I was 15 and the high school decreed all sophomore’s had to be in class an hour earlier to make room for everyone. My first hour English class was very quiet until I knocked over my books. Even the teacher jumped.
I just wasn’t what one would call an ‘early-riser’. I liked Friday nights when I was allowed to stay up reasonably late, if I was reasonably quiet. I would watch TV with the sound low, or look for components for a radio controlled transmitter among my Dad’s ample supplies of new and used electronic gizmos or fiddle with my latest hobby things. Or I would simply read a good book in bed. Then when the time finally came that I felt nice and drowsy I’d drift off to many pleasant hours of restorative sleep.
Once I was a teenager life got harder and responsibilities began to mount up. I became more and more aware of the dangerous and violent world around me. Sometimes sleeping was my favorite respite. Saturday mornings I would have my head buried in my pillow and my blanket wrapped around my shoulders as I did my best to ignore reality. Until my Dad would come into my room and say in his singsong style, “The sun is shining and the bird’s are singing and your sleeping the day away! Time to rise and shine!” And I’d mutter under my breath about how he wasn’t that cheerful the night before.
I left home in my 18th year. I got a job in a factory and began working the 4 pm to 12:30 am shift. And that’s when I discovered that I wasn’t necessarily lazy, actually I was just a night owl. I liked to go to work in the late afternoon and be able to spend two or three hours after work relaxing, reading or visiting with friends and not setting an alarm because I knew I would wake up in plenty of time to be at work again the next afternoon. And I didn’t have to change my sleep schedule once the weekend was over.
That is until my right front wheel bearing went out on my classic 1972 turquoise Gremlin and it was up to me to replace it. I tried to sleep in the next Saturday but I knew I had to get out there and take apart the wheel and figure out how to fix it. Finally I got everything taken apart and remembered all the advice from my Dad and friends at work and they all agreed it was simple. Even I could do it, they reassured me. “Just take off the old wheel bearings, put grease on the new ones and slide them on to the axle.” Only I was doing something wrong and they wouldn’t slide on. I tried everything from using my left hand instead of my right to a few violent whacks with a hammer (mostly because I didn’t have a lot of tools, but I did have a hammer). And then I had to go back and buy a new set of wheel bearings. Twice. But finally the patient guy at the automotive parts store had an insightful, key question to ask me.
“Son, tell me, which way are you trying to slide these on the axle?” He asked. “This way,” he asked as he turned them around, “Or this way? Because this is how they go on.” And after that they went right on and I could sleep in again. For a while.
Now my grandfather, or Pappy we called him, was an early riser. He was also a go-getter and a successful businessman and investor. When I was growing up and we’d visit Pappy, even if it was a Saturday morning or a holiday he would wake us all up by 6 am. I was never sure why. But I remember being fully dressed and groggily sitting at the table by 6:15 eating greasy eggs and soggy bacon for breakfast that just never sat so good in my night owl stomach. I guess maybe because my Mom raised us on cream of wheat and toast for breakfast.
Well the years flew by. And I’ve gone from a daytime student to a night owl evening shift worker to working the graveyard shift and back to day shift to split shifts. (I used to go sort mail in the post office from 6 am to about 10 am then go back and cancel and sort mail again from 3 pm to 6 pm.) And back to day time work again. And I’ve spent nights just trying to get to sleep just so I could be up on time to go to work, or to catch a plane or leave on a trip or just because I needed to be reasonable awake and more or less coherent all the next day.
And I’ve gone from a grade school boy playing with a brand new windup alarm clock I set just for the fun of it, to waking up to a clock radio playing country rock music when I was a college student to waking up way before the alarm goes off to now where I just seem to wake up off and on all night and by 5 or 5:30 in the morning I can’t get back to sleep. So, now, I’ve crossed over. I’ve become what my grandfather, Pappy was. An Early Riser. Only I’m not so much of a go-getter as he was, nor investor nor successful business man either.
But I know, it’s hard to believe that after decades of sleeping in as much as possible to now when the birds begin to sing and the sun begins to rise I wake up. Whether I want to or not. Whether I’ve been asleep for the proverbial 8 hours or not.
So I suppose when my grandsons come for a visit I should check on them early in the morning and shout, “The sun’s shining, the bird’s are singing and you’re sleeping the day away. Time to rise and shine!” I’m sure they’ll appreciate it as much as I did.
I’m sure I’ll be just like my grandfather, Pappy and by 7:30 when the grandsons are looking for something or anything to do I’ll be sitting in my easy chair, dozing off. Because, you see. That’s what early risers do.
I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 4.8
When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Proverbs 3.24