Of Night Owls and Early Birds

I like to stay up late. Really late. Like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning late. Don't get me wrong, I love sleep, and always regret having to leave it when my alarm clock goes off. But there always seems to be one last interesting thing I need to do before I go to bed. Even when I try really hard to get to bed earlier, I never seem to manage to get under my covers before midnight.

Of course these late night lead to late mornings. I usually don't leave my bed until after 11, and I often get ridiculed for sleeping so late. Which leads me to a question: why is it socially unacceptable to sleep in past 9:00? I mean, seriously, why does a person have to be awake during certain hours and asleep during certain hours? What is wrong with sleeping till noon and staying awake past midnight? I say, absolutely nothing. I personally think better later at night (yes I know technically 1:00AM is "morning" but I consider anytime that is dark and most people sleep to be "night")  and my thoughts flow more freely, so it is easier for me to do things like write (which is why I am writing this at 1:27AM). Now, if I am tired, some of those thoughts won't be coherent, but they come out of the recesses of my brain a lot faster if I am writing after the sun goes down.

I guess the point I am trying to make with all of this, is that the notion that everyone has to go to bed in the hours where the letters "PM" follow the numbers and get up before all of the hours ending in "AM" have passed, is silly. Go to bed when it works best for you, get up when it works best for you, and don't feel horrible just because you are eating breakfast when everyone is eating lunch. Although I would probably not recommend staying up past midnight when you have to leave at six the next morning for a debate tournament. It is not fun.

Until I write again, au revoir.

~Nat