I feel like I'm fighting with myself. My circadian rhythm, at the very least. I really want to be a morning person. But no, no way. I'm a night person. I could quite easily work from about two in the afternoon until well past two in the morning, accomplishing Herculean tasks, keeping abreast of my to-do lists, exercising my way to an Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet body. In reality, what happens -- I try. I get up with my kid and husband and get them off to start their days around 7, feeling like I'm hungover (I'm not, trust me, my pancreas and thyroid are already shot, I need to keep my liver going a while longer), I get them off to school and work, and then I head back to bed promising myself that today will be the day that I do not fall back to sleep. Oh, if only. Nope. Ain't happening. Within a short time, I'm back sleeping again. Usually until about, oh say, 11. Then I get up, have some brunch, get a shower, check email, maybe run an errand or two, then it's off to get the kid from school. By the time we get home, it's four. By this time, I'm ready to go, I'm primed, I'm pedal to the metal, full bore, coal-fired ready to work. Which gives me approximately an hour, before I need to start dinner. And of course, because I am Mom, I want and need to spend time with the boy and talk about his day (I'm also a news junkie, which is massively time-consuming).
After Spousetacular gets home, and the dinner dishes are stowed in the dishwasher, lunches packed, and household discussions attended to, I sit with Spousetacular and knit while we watch TV. ( For the past couple nights, I've come back to my office to write, which is totally throwing Spousetacular for one.) The boy goes to bed between 9:30 and 10, and then Spousetacular follows soon after. This is when life really becomes problematic for me...'cause now I'm not tired (hear the whiny toddler, because apparently this has been my issue since infancy). Since we have a house that is not constructed to allow each resident an individual pod, I'm kind of stuck. I can't go exercise in the basement; it's under the bedroom. Can't write - office is attached to the bedroom and there's no door. Can't go to the grocery store, it's not open (and I'm a total paranoid freak when it comes to night errands -- only serial killers, muggers and heroin addicts are out after dark). So, I'm stuck.
One thing I do get done: reading. I read constantly. I'm just about finished with J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. That one actually would keep me up at night if I weren't awake already, and miraculously, this morning as well. It's excellent. If you haven't read it, be warned: This ain't Harry Potter. It's a dark story that mucks around in the dirt of every day life. But I digress; this post was about my not being on the same rhythm as my family.
I wonder if I force a change to my daily routine, how that will affect my writing? I have noticed that I feel a lot more creative and frankly, shit flows better, when I do my weird sleep during the day thing. The problem is, I just don't get done what I want. I need a change of time zone. In Fiji, I'm a morning a person.
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