I was one, then I became the other, virtually overnight.
Leaving aside school years, once my bedtime and rising time were just down to me, I rapidly became a Night Owl, out of necessity.
I was a musician, who started work in a club around 9pm, and finished often as late as 2am. After that, it was off to the Casino for drinks and a little gamble, and then an all-night restaurant. Bedtime averaged about 6am. The rest of the morning never existed, as I was always away with the fairies.
In my early forties, all that changed. My profession became merely my hobby, and what was my hobby, presenting on the radio, became my profession – with slightly different hours.
For over 20 years, I presented breakfast on BBC Radio Jersey – the show started at 6am, though being an all-speech programme, including holding movers and shakers to account, there was a lot of preparation required. That meant being at the station before 5am. Luckily, living on a very small island, the drive to work at silly o’clock in the morning only took about eight minutes.
After the show, there was some three hours of various other duties, like training, to keep me well occupied until 1pm. Then off to the pub, because lunchtime was my little bit of social life. Bed-time? Around 9pm most nights, unless there was football on TV, with the alarm clock set for 4am.
It became such a habit, being up with the Lark, or even before it, that well into retirement, I remain an early riser, as is Mrs B., and compared to most of our contemporaries, we are very early bed-goers. We rarely venture out in the evenings, and are usually tucked up by 9pm or soon after.
I am writing this in mid-afternoon, and am already a trifle fatigued. By 9pm, I will be falling asleep, ready to rise again in the morning, (hopefully!!) around 6.30am. Not a bad life for a confirmed Morning Lark.
“Morning Lark” or “Night Owl”?
I know that it is much better, energetically, to wake up early in the morning. I’ve experienced it so many times in my life. Plus, the current season – early summer – is the best time to wake up early. Blue sky – even here in Moscow. Bright sun. Green trees. Sharp shadows on the asphalt. The feeling that summer is endless, just like the blue sky up above. I remember it since elementary school in the early 1980s: the three-month summer holiday, early June especially, were the happiest days of my life.
Yet, I am a Night Owl.
I discovered it back in middle school. I hated to wake up at seven in the morning. In the Soviet Union, radio was on until midnight; it was the state policy, and there was no radio except for the state radio channels. We only had three stations. At 11 pm, they were usually broadcasting some ‘light’ music. That was cool; to me, it was like some threshold from evening to nighttime. I loved listening to it.
Plenty of private FM music channels have popped up since 1991. They played music all night, and that was also some of the happiest times – to listen to those airs. I was sixteen, listening to all this music that you couldn’t hear on the air even two or three years previously.
My office life became my nightmare as I had to wake up early. Yet, I was going to bed at around 1 or 2 am: I was suffering from chronic lack of sleep.
Now, as I work from home as a copywriter, I don’t have to wake up early. I live in paradise… Wait! I’ve got two daughters: they are nine and seven. They go to school.
And now, I am that poor bastard who goes to bed at 2 am and still gets up at 7:30 am to drive ’em to school.
“Morning Lark” or “Night Owl”?
When you’re a teenager, being cool is what life is all about. You stay up until two; or at least tell your friends you did. Then you sleep until noon on Saturday. You know why? Because your so damn cool, that’s why.
I was never cool. I suppose it’s too late to turn my collar up and start being one of the cool kids now. I just have to suck it up and admit to my morning person, complete with a nerdy lifestyle. When I was in school, I would set my alarm clock each night before going to bed, then turn it off before the alarm went off in the morning. I didn’t like the sound it made and I never needed one. In fact, I don’t even have a clock in my bedroom at all now. I simply wake up.
I’ll tell you how bad that is; this time of year, it starts to get light before five here. I wake up but stay in bed. It’s too early to get up. So, I’m just kinda’ laying there, wondering what all the cool kids are doing. Then I get bored and get up about 5:45 or so. I’ll make breakfast, walk the dogs, and wonder if the cool kids are still asleep.
If I lay in bed until ten, I’m just exhausted the rest of the day. There is a price I pay for all my larkiness; I go to bed early, as in way too early. I have always needed a full night’s sleep and if I can’t get seven hours in, I’m tired the next day. So, my idea of a late night is like ten or ten-thirty (22:30) and I normally don’t stay up that late unless we have company. For some reason I can’t explain, I’m happy to stay up then.
I’ll close by mentioning that the phrase “morning lark” is not something I have seen previously. I assume it’s related to some British thing or another. No doubt Monty Python has used it to attack the dreaded French early in the morning. They’re cool you know.