Eagle v. Owl

I am not a morning person. I'd like to be a morning person, I've tried being a morning person, but at the end of the day, I prefer the end of the day. I probably wouldn't mind mornings so much if they didn't start so damn early.

As long as I can remember, I've been a night owl. Back when I was in my teens, during summer vacation, there were many nights when I'd be going to bed just as my mother was getting up for work. I swiped borrowed my mother's old Smith-Corona electric typewriter (does anyone still remember typewriters??) and would be pounding out some wangsty teen melodrama (on onionskin paper. Does anyone still remember onionskin typing paper? Erasing mistakes on it was a bitch and a half. The ink would smear if you weren't careful. Blurg.) I probably still have some of those old stories, horrible though I'm sure they are. Even back then, nighttime was my favorite time to write.

After my daughter was born, I was too exhausted to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning (that wouldn't come until she was 2 or 3, and since she was a late riser, I had it made in the shade.) So, at that point, I'd get up when my husband left for work. He's in construction, so he's out the door by 5:30-6AM. I'd get up and go into my office (with plenty of coffee), safe in knowing I could work until 9:30 or so.

Unfortunately, my creativity and productivity just aren't that great so early in the morning. No matter what I've tried, I don't hit my creative groove until 10-11PM. And by then, I have to go to sleep because I have to be up to get the Boy and Girl off to school. Blurg.

Because of that, writing is more work than it used to be. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it just takes some getting used to. But I've found that I can't change the basic fact that I'm a night owl. I think either you are or you aren't, and it can't be changed any more than you can change your height or eye color (and colored contact lenses don't count.)

So I'm a night owl who is forced to be something of a morning person. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much, but it is what it is. Someday I'll get to be a night owl again, but that'll mean my kids are all growed up, so as much as I love the whole nighttime thing, I'm not in too great a hurry to get there.

How about you? Do you hoot with the owls at night? Or soar with the eagles in the morning?