When I was younger my favorite thing to do was challenge myself to stay up as late as possible. My parents tried to combat this by giving me a very strict bedtime. I had to be in bed by 9:00 until I was in about 5th grade when this got pushed back until 11:00. The rules were that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I was quiet, and in my bed. This often mean that I was reading.
A lot of people read before bed to try and help them fall asleep. This is what my parents were going for, but sadly, it never seemed to work. When I read, I got completely lost in the story and would end up staying awake until the wee hours of the morning. Often as late as 2 or 3 am.
I had no bedtime on the weekend, any my parents would let me stay up until whenever. This was great once I started having friends sleep over nearly every weekend. We'd stay up until dawn and play Monopoly, or watch movies. If you readers listen to my podcast, you'd know that I was basically allowed to watch anything at any age, so it was pretty interesting when friends would stay over and they'd be watching Die Hard, or Terminator for the very first time.
Even when I didn't have friends over, I'd spend most of the weekend nights just trying to stay up as long as possible. At a very young age, I started consuming hour after hour of Nick at Nite. To this day, when older co-workers find out that I actually know who Donna Reed was, they are almost floored. Often times, they'll say something like, "Oh Get Smart, was a show about spies... it was probably before your time." and I'll interruptingly respond with, "Yeah that Don Adams was a really funny actor. Did you know that Barbara Feldon is actually taller than he is, and so she had to crouch down in most scenes?" This retort often just leaves them with their jaw on the ground. It also doesn't help that I look like I'm about 20 when I'm actually much closer to 30. This causes a lot of other problems, but I'll leave that for another post.
Eventually staying up late started to cause problems in high school. I had trouble staying awake in some classes, and it was about that same time when my natural intelligence hit the limit and I actually had to study and work hard to maintain my grades instead of just naturally knowing the answers. My doctor prescribed melatonin, and I used it for about a week before I realized that it just made it harder for me to wake up in the first place. Besides, by this point, I was already used to using my night time hours alone to focus on homework, so a nap right after school, and then staying up all night actually helped me in the grand scheme of things. I used this same routine all throughout college, and it even lead me to get a couple night time jobs.
It was a way of life for such a long long time. Now that I have a "regular" 9-5 job, I sometimes feel that I'm missing out on a very important part of my life. I am now in bed nightly by around midnight, or 1:00 even on nights that don't require me to get up in the morning. I really miss my nightly alone time that I once used to expand my horizons and reflect internally and come up with creative ideas. If there was one thing I could change about my life right now it would be to have the ability to stay up all night again. It is the one thing about my childhood and adolescence that I miss the most.
I said before, that I would challenge myself to stay up the entire night. Here's what my reward was for winning that challenge.
A beautiful sunrise that I shared with absolutely no one.
Eventually staying up late started to cause problems in high school. I had trouble staying awake in some classes, and it was about that same time when my natural intelligence hit the limit and I actually had to study and work hard to maintain my grades instead of just naturally knowing the answers. My doctor prescribed melatonin, and I used it for about a week before I realized that it just made it harder for me to wake up in the first place. Besides, by this point, I was already used to using my night time hours alone to focus on homework, so a nap right after school, and then staying up all night actually helped me in the grand scheme of things. I used this same routine all throughout college, and it even lead me to get a couple night time jobs.
It was a way of life for such a long long time. Now that I have a "regular" 9-5 job, I sometimes feel that I'm missing out on a very important part of my life. I am now in bed nightly by around midnight, or 1:00 even on nights that don't require me to get up in the morning. I really miss my nightly alone time that I once used to expand my horizons and reflect internally and come up with creative ideas. If there was one thing I could change about my life right now it would be to have the ability to stay up all night again. It is the one thing about my childhood and adolescence that I miss the most.
I said before, that I would challenge myself to stay up the entire night. Here's what my reward was for winning that challenge.
A beautiful sunrise that I shared with absolutely no one.
