mercurial scribe

Since becoming a mother, my daily routine has gone to crap. Seriously. It seemed like everything I tried would only further frustrate me, including my sudden obsession with waking up early to get work done before Miri was up and ready to start her day. As a person with bipolar, my moods were all over the place.

After a month or so of trying - rather desperately - to be an early riser waking as early as 5 a.m. to implement at least a resemblance of a respectable daily routine that hinged on waking up at that time, I have come to realize that it just doesn’t work for me. I am a night owl by nature and the more I fight it, the more sleep-deprived I am which means the more the bipolar is aggravated. Trying to change one’s biological tendencies is always a losing battle: it is a matter of understanding your biology and make it work for you.

My chaos started at the beginning of June. With my writing business taking off, I realized I needed bigger chunks of time to write uninterrupted. But given that I am also a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM for short), once Miri is up and going that was just not going to happen. And her naps? Anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours. While I will squeeze in whatever time I can, I also need a good chunk of time to sit and really get on a roll. My brilliant idea was to become an early riser, getting up at the unseemly hour of 5 a.m. to start my day with an hour of exercise, a pot of coffee and three hours of uninterrupted writing.

Let us say that just went to crap. Immediately, I was struggling to get out of bed despite my clever psychological training a la Steve Pavlina. It was just not going to happen. Enter the repetitive cycle of self-deception: I would set my alarm for 5 a.m., optimistic and trusting. At 5, it would go off and in my medicated and sleepy stupor, I would dismiss it. At 6 a.m. my backup alarm would ring, only to be entirely unheard by my snoring unconscious self. Then, at 9 or 10, I would snap awake startled and angry that I once again couldn’t do it. After a week of this, I felt horrible about myself since I just could not get up when I wanted to and my whole day’s routine was shot from not being able to begin properly.

Then, about a week ago I had enough. I sat down and wrote out the times that I have a tendency to do things. For example, if left undisturbed I will naturally wake between 8 and 10 a.m. I’m not fully functional until just about noon or 1, which is when Miri has started to take her naps and I tend to do housework, errands or write. Then, around 3 or 4, she wakes up and I get antsy, which is the perfect time for me to take Zoe the dog and Miri for a long walk at the local park. When I get back, it’s time to settle down for dinner and family time. Then, about 9 p.m. my creative juices seriously start flowing. At around midnight or 1 a.m. I get sleepy and turn in for the night. Looking at this list, I compared it to the Horne-Ostberg “morningness” test and I fall comfortably in the evening chronotype.

What was hard for me to come to terms with is the fact that our society favors early birds. Night owls can’t possibly be productive people - no, we’re viewed as lazy, artistic and perpetually late while our early bird counterparts are productive, logical, and regimented. Being a closet people-pleaser, it internally bothers me to be outside the accepted norm. But if life has taught me anything, it’s that there are certain rules you don’t break (treat others as you would like to be treated) and other rules that are made to be defied. So, goodness bless you Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta, but you can shove your 5 a.m. alarm where the sun ain’t even up yet! Me? I’ll be writing happily at 10 p.m. with my cup of decaf and my fingers a-flyin’ across my ergonomic keyboard.