nocturnal

Hello everyone, my name is Rockstar.

"Hello Rockstar"

I'm here today because I have a problem. I have an addiction. It has taken over my life, and I am hitting rock bottom. I have tried to quit cold turkey. I tried the "natural" pills. I've tried warm milk. I've tried cutting back on the coffee. I have even counted sheep. And named them.

I am addicted to staying up late.

*Gasp*

*Stunned silence*

Really now, I have a problem. There can be nothing of interest on TV. I might not feel like reading. I could potentially hit a dead end reading blogs. I'll just end up playing solitaire for hours. I cannot seem to put myself to bed before midnight. If I do go to bed before the witching hour, no matter how exhausted I was entering my bedroom I will lie awake until the clock rolls over.

I blame my parents. (Why not, everyone else blames theirs for something, don't they?) I grew up with a strict bedtime. Eight o'clock, every night. Let me tell you that really sucked in the summer when the sun went down at nine. I always envied my parents; my dad was always the late night guy. He would putz around into the wee hours.

I took to reading by the nightlight (my younger sister was afraid of the dark, conveniently) for hours after bedtime, in secret.

Later on when I reached my early teens I learned how to sneak out into the empty living room and watch the other TV without my parents suspecting.

When I hit my late teens I would call my parents at some point in the course of an evening and ask to sleep over a friend's house, when really I just wanted to come home late. If they asked why I ended up coming home after all I would just say I couldn't sleep and missed my bed. How can a parent argue with that?

A lot of my past lives revolved around alternative lifestyles, with late nights at work and me sleeping in until noon. I really did love waking up at two pm every day. I'm Irish for god's sake; sun is not my natural environment.

Here I am four years into a regular nine to five schedule, and I am still unable to acclimate. I hoped my sleep schedule would change, that I could shift my natural sleep cycle. No such luck. I tried sleeping pills, which did get me to bed earlier, but when I awoke I was so groggy it was even harder than normal to get out of bed.

I really do envy the people who get to bed at a "decent" hour most nights, who get up early and go to the gym. They seem so industrious, so put together. Even now with this training schedule and me getting so tired at night I just can't seem to get to bed at a decent time.

Oooh, maybe I should try hypnosis. How funny would that be if it worked too well and I got narcolepsy? Or if I was out at a bar with friends and just fell asleep automatically at ten.

Okay, maybe not so funny.

Well, that is it. I'll go to bed

RIGHT

NOW

After I play just one more game of solitaire.