The older I get

Yes, yes, I know. I'm 27, I'm still very young. The thing about that, though, is that aging as an adult is still sort of novel to me. Or maybe more the concept that I'm in charge of my own life. I wasn't granted a lot of independence as a kid, or at the least, I wasn't really encouraged to take it. I didn't have authoritarian parents, but I did have anxious ones. Getting past the age of 18 and spending some time living away from them began the journey of me realizing I actually get to decide things about myself. I can't decide if the little quirks I accept about myself are choice or acceptance (or perhaps both somehow).

This is brought on by the fact that I woke up with my husband this morning. We were supposed to hang out last night, but he was very tired, as per usual for him with all his mountain days and work as a nurse. Lying there on the couch with his head resting on me, I fell asleep for a bit too, until I forced us up to clean up our dinner dishes and pizza boxes and go to bed. It was something like 10:30 when I fell asleep last night- this is unusually early for me.

This morning, I was out of bed shortly after 6, and have been more or less awake since 5:30. Here's the first piece of acceptance I've found, which I don't really think is a choice: for about an hour or so after I first wake up, I am not really there. This is why I love the alarm clock we have that gradually brightens the room and then starts playing my choice of radio station (it's the CBC... don't judge). It makes the process a little bit easier and allows it to start without me getting out of bed. I'm not the type to spring out of bed as soon as I feel awake, there's a gray area where I like to hover for a little while to make the change more gradual. I like to get up only when I am at least 90% of the way to full cognitive function. 

The other piece is that I need at least 6 hours to function well. Any less, and I am just not myself. I feel this piece differs for many people. My husband seems to be able to cope with any number of hours, perhaps buoyed on by his ability to literally fall asleep anywhere (including once in a hotel lobby in Switzerland as he experienced jet lag for the first time). I'm also a bit picky about where I sleep, it needs to be a dark and cool room with a bed, but not so dark that I can't open my eyes and see (to the best of my myopic abilities) vaguely what is going on. I can't sleep on planes, I can't sleep in cars, I can't sleep on my desk. I can have a vaguely satisfying nap on a couch from time to time. Serious hits of caffeine from coffee only serve to make me feel as though someone has inserted a dishwashing brush into my colon and scrubbed it around (complete with the consequences of what actually doing that would bring). Synthroid even for a time destroyed my ability to have caffeinated tea. As it is, two cups of green tea bring heart palpitations that really freak me out, so I'm left with no choice but to get enough sleep.

I was just about prepared, before I sat down to write this, to accept a third truth: I can't get up before 7 am without feeling the desperate need to take a nap all day. I do also believe that people have different sleep schedules that work best for them, and that these change as we age: I have a friend who sleeps in (genuinely sleeps) until 11AM whenever she is given the choice, despite working a full time 9-5 job, and my parents regularly rise at 5AM without really having to try. I was sitting around all morning reading a book and eating my breakfast and drinking some (caffeinated) green tea, and as the morning wore on I found myself thinking more and more longingly of bed. I resisted this urge as I know for a fact that going back to bed after I have already decided to get up and start my day just makes me depressed. And then I got up to go to the bathroom.

Lo and behold. I am not so picky about my wake up time. The simple act of literally just moving around woke me up more than I can say. This clicks with previous adult experience- how I never fell asleep in 8AM labs in undergrad, how I would be sleepy after leaving my residence but feel refreshed and alert after a mere 20 minute walking commute to school, how even on sleepy camping mornings, I manage to feel all right as I am forced to move around to retrieve the stove from the car, find space on the table for it, and begin to cook breakfast. It's not the early morning that's the problem, it's the sitting. Of course, fucking once again everyone is right about exercise. GOD, that's so annoying.

I think it's good to question and criticize, or at least be willing to admit change in, those little ways of being we decide are how we are. Sometimes we are being too hard on ourselves, like when I finally looked at the evidence and figured I must be at least a decent graduate student, since nobody had told me I needed to hustle it up or get kicked out. Sometimes we are too generous- I realized the other day I'm perhaps a bit of an abrasive person, since someone who has now amassed 4 enemies is probably not just a sweet and nice and kind person 100% (nor do I think I'm just perpetually unlucky or a victim to have run into so many people who think I'm just the fucking worst). And perhaps I need to just admit, I am not necessarily a morning person per se- but a fucking walk would probably make that better.

The other thing that I have had to accept about myself? If I save a post to the drafts here, it won't ever get published. That's why I've just been hitting publish instantly on whatever inane post I've written in the past two weeks- I've only drafted (and subsequently deleted) two posts. So, here's to knowing ourselves.