9 More Minutes, Please...

On the first day of classes at The University of Texas, my roommate learned something very important about me. Namely, I am not a human being until after my first Diet Coke of the day.

We were so excited to be finally embarking on our new paths in life, but my roommate and I all had different ways of approaching that excitement. My approach was of the bleary-eyed, hit snooze a dozen times, wake up slowly, and somehow make it to my 9:30AM class on-time. This being our first time away from our families, who were totally used to our ways of looking at morning (My "alarm clock" at home was a telephone next to my bed... my mother would call me to wake me up so that she didn't have to climb the stairs), we all had to adjust. Hell, I missed my alarm from home, to tell the truth.

So on probably the third time I hit snooze that fateful morning, Karly cheerily said, "It's time to get up!" I'm sure she said something else, but time erases what it was (Karly, do you remember?). I don't think either of us will forget my reaction, though, as it has been fodder for conversation in our lives ever since... Karly found out that I'm a raging bitch first thing in the morning. In a sleep-graveled and angry voice, I answered sharply, "OKAY MOM!" and threw off my covers and stomped into the bathroom.

She still jokes to this day that the only way to approach me in the mornings is to put a frown on and mumble, "hey," from a distance. But that's what we do when we live with people. We adapt. It's kind of like the evolution of the chameleon, we change to suit our surroundings for survival purposes.

I'd like to state here and now that I am very sorry, Karly, for making you change instead of me. But thank you for "getting" it and for putting up with me for three years of being roommates and for teaching my other roommates how to deal with me so that they wouldn't get their heads bitten off in the morning.

I've never changed in all these years in the way I wake up. I'm never one to throw off my covers and face the day with a grin on my face. At least not right away. It takes at least an hour for me to finally get into gear. Knowing this truth about myself, you'd think that after all this time, I'd at least set myself up for being a pleasant person to be around by waking up a bit earlier and giving myself a little more time to wake up and be cheerful. You'd be oh so very wrong.

I'm a "snoozer" and I fall asleep almost instantly once I hit the button. But at least when I do this, I know what time it is and know how long I need to have to shower, dress, put on makeup, etc. to leave relatively on-time to be somewhere. I typically snooze for half an hour and this is my time to begin to wake up. Then, once I get up, I'm ready to begin my morning routine and do the things one does before work. I have my total routine from start to finish on workdays down to about 30 minutes. Not bad, in my opinion. But there is literally zero room for error, so if I'm off by even 5 minutes, I'm already starting the day in a hole.

Well for the past three days (Who am I kidding? The past two WEEKS!), I've been waking up 30 minutes late, or almost an hour after my alarm starts going off (remember? I "snooze."). I haven't even been hearing my alarm until close to 7AM, which means that I've been hitting the snooze button in a dead sleep.

As a side note, I deplore lateness. I hate it. I hate being late for anything, much less work. In my job these days, it doesn't really matter if I show up at 7:30 or 8 to anyone but me, but that half hour in the mornings when few people are there... That half hour of peace to go through emails, file things away, and prep myself for the next 9 hours is crucial to how my day ends up going.

Imagine a non-morning person, one who already wakes up cranky, waking up knowing she will be late yet again. It isn't pretty and puts a pall on the morning that I can never seem to snap out of. So I've been cranky. Good thing my Dr and Boy Pop have been asleep most mornings. That way they don't have to endure me.