Who knew I was a morning person?

When I was a kid, everyone was a “morning person.” Night people were social outcasts. Well, at least our parents let us know that “early to bed, early to rise” described the expected norm.

When I got old enough, I was permitted to stay up only until the TV news was over at which time even the high school seniors went to bed. Next morning, breakfast was served at seven. Everyone came to breakfast. Everyone ate the same food, and everyone began his day thereafter.

Then someone shattered family life as we knew it by getting a grant and discovering that there are “morning people” and there are “night people.” Morning people like things the way they always were. They like to get up early, plan their day, then get their day’s work done, watch the news, and go to bed afterwards.

Night people are the ones who begin to come alive around nine p.m. They clean their rooms well after sundown. They call fellow night people to come over and make cookies after the news is over. They go shopping at midnight—to the stores that are open, which are only the video stores and the grocery stores, but that is enough to outfit a party.

I know all this because there are people of both kinds in my family. When they all lived at home, the night people stayed up at night, and the morning people got up in the morning. Guess who lost sleep on both ends?

I myself have been known to go to bed before the news begins. Now don’t start jumping to conclusions about my psychological makeup. If I don’t know what kind of person I am, neither does anyone else. I have also been known to stay up late with a good book. However, I do remember that back in the day I didn’t get much sleep when the night people were phoning or when Saturday Night Live was playing. Sometimes I just got up and ate cookies and read yearbooks with everyone else.

On the other hand, I didn’t sleep too well with morning piano practicing or the sounds of someone fixing breakfast. So I usually got out of bed and poured milk on the cereal before someone else poured it on the floor.
What could I say? The morning people had tradition on their side, and the night people had the studies in the medical journals on theirs. (Trying to turn a night person into a morning person can have long-term negative psychological effects, just as trying to turn a left-handed child into a right-handed one can.) And which is worse, a very sleepy mom or a bunch of neurotic kids?

I may have finally overcome the social pressures exerted by the night and morning people in my life who did their level best to turn me into a person of their own order. Perhaps I have blossomed into the kind of person I was meant to be—originally.

For a while there, after most of the kids left home, I rebounded and became an afternoon person—someone who goes to bed early and gets up late. It seemed that I should take advantage of the opportunity to get extra sleep whenever I could, just in case everyone moved back home again.

As for now, in case anyone cares, I seem to be a traditional morning person At least I find myself awake early most mornings trying to get a plan for the day, and ready for bed by the time the news comes on.

Speaking of which, I hear the ten o’clock news winding down right now. It must be time for me to be done here and to be going off to bed.