Insomniac or Nocturnal?

I'm right smack dab in the middle of an epiphany. Right now, at 12:38 a.m. while "Singin' In The Rain" plays in the background and my husband snores pleasantly in the next room.

I'm not an insomniac, I'm just nocturnal.

I've struggled to find a regular sleep pattern for years, and I've failed for years. I struggle with it, because I feel like there's something wrong with me. Only bad things stay up all night. Drunks, serial killers, hookers...vampires. Naturally, there's got to be something amiss deep down in my DNA because I can't go to sleep at a normal hour, right?

Every night is the same. I try to go to sleep around 11 o'clock, I toss and turn for a few hours, I give up and get up (or roll around for the rest of the night), the alarm goes off, and I get up looking something like Frankenstein's monster, probably sound something like him too. "Honey, would you like some coffee?" asks my "far too reasonable in the mornings to be human" husband. "Raaaahhhh!" followed by the sound of something breaking or a door slamming is my typical response. Then, at some point during the day, I go down like a ton of bricks for a two hour nap and wake up, with very eighties looking hair, feeling fantastic.

Ridiculous.

In fact, I'm so completely unpleasant in the mornings that we've had to come up with a rule, the first hour awake doesn't count. This has helped my husband cope with my Incredible Hulkian morning temperament. That man deserves a medal for living with my strange sleeping habits. I know, I shouldn't be allowed to behave as such. It's horrible.

I know precisely what you're thinking at this point in the read. You want to share a helpful piece of advice with me. Something like, just tire yourself out during the day with a lot of exercise, don't get up at night ever, take a sleeping aid, try meditation, buy a white noise machine, drink a hot toddy (Here's my grandma's recipe), or perhaps even, "Let me punch you right square in the face".

I've tried them all. I promise. I used to be an avid runner. A runner of marathons, in fact. And even on the days when I would run a marathon (very few) I STILL couldn't sleep at night. So there.

But I think I finally have it figured out. I'm just meant to be awake at night. I love it for so many reasons, and it works so well for me. I love the quiet of the night. I love those stupid sounds that most people don't even notice during the day. The refrigerator running, the heater kicking on and off, the wind blowing outside, and all the other anonymous ticks, tocks, and squeaks that come in the middle of the night. I'm quite familiar with the raccoons, possums, and stray cats of the area. I've nearly got them all named and know about what time they're going to show up on my side porch looking for food or trying to eat dry leaves or rocks or whatever. (Cute, but not too bright.)Plus, I'm always ready for any random night-time emergencies. I can't tell you how many times I've called the police over a street fight or a drunk driver. You've been warned, the nocturnal see all...

It also doesn't hurt that I've been this way for as long as I could remember. I was always up and out of bed as a child, looking out the window on zombie watch at Halloween time, watching the snow or the rain or the sky every other time of year, and sometimes having all night movie-fests for one. (I can usually get in about three movies and there has to be some kind of theme. Something like spoof comedies, Audrey Hepburn films, or movies set in a particular country, like Italy. Try me, I have a cinematic tri-fecta for every occasion.)

And I can't tell you the number of times I haplessly terrified one of my family members when I was a child. I was notorious for it. I'd be lurking in the pitch black dark of the house, just wandering around full of inexplicable energy, and my mother would get up to get a drink of water. She'd yelp when she saw the figure of another human standing silent in the living room. I was also famous for peeking my head around corners and scaring the bejeesus out of my sisters. I had the market cornered on creepy, and had a real way of conjuring up subliminal terrors with my midnight adventures. "Why would you poke your head around the corner like that? You know I just saw, "Communion/The Exorcist/the Thriller video"!

My Dad was always sticking up for me on this. I'd complain that I couldn't sleep, and he'd immediately announce some very precise piece of evidence that he read in the paper or saw on 20/20 the night before about how some people work on entirely different biological clocks. Of course, these stories were usually part of a larger piece about people who suffer from random medical oddities, like skin that smells like fish. Bless their hearts.

His evidence would usually quell my frustration for a little while. But secretly I've always pined for the ability to just sleep like a normal person. To go to bed at ten or eleven, roll out of bed like Snow White or Pee Wee Herman at 6 a.m., take a walk or have some coffee, and go about my day refreshed.

But the truth is, as much as I want to live on a regular schedule, this works for me. I chose an unconventional career, writing. This means I can get away with erratic behavior and say I'm doing it on purpose for "my art". Also, my husband likes to have a couple of hours to himself in the mornings, for reading or writing of his own. And he makes the coffee. He can enjoy a cup or two before the monster awakens.

But the best benefit of all is that I have a lot of ideas at night. From midnight on, I can write effortlessly. Oh, I'm not saying it's any good, but it really starts to flow. I can get out pages upon pages for unfinished scripts, essays, and columns. They just start coming to me. I think it's because everything else is so quiet that my brain can finally drip its latest idea out, like that leaky faucet that only drips when you're not looking. The convenient lack of leaf blowers and dogs barking and sunlight leaves just enough room for me to process my ideas without distraction.

And there's something deeply relaxing about knowing the rest of my community is asleep. It's a completely pressure free existence. At night, when everyone else is sleeping, it's okay for me to pay attention to what I find inspiring. Even the littlest thing, a certain hairstyle in a movie that's on can catch my fancy and inspire an idea, and it feels completely okay and perfectly natural to just go with it! I don't have to explain myself to anyone.

During the day, I get anxious. I start to think things like, "Normal people are sitting in their offices doing REAL jobs, earning pensions and sick days. I'm sitting in my living room, listening to my cat cleaning itself and calling myself an 'artist'. I'm insane." This round of panic usually lasts a good hour, in which time I start looking for jobs and updating my resume.

In the daylight, it's very hard to explain to people that I am not a dead beat. That I do, in fact, have a job. And the urge to explain myself to people starts to pop up. They very innocently ask, "How are you?" and I give them a long list of what I'm doing to defend myself against their non-existent criticism. "Well, I'm forming an outline and talking to my editor from "fill in the blank" and he thinks "this or that". After that, I have to dig through my files to look for a copyright release form..." and on and on I ramble. Probably sounding ego-centric, because all they wanted me to say was, "Good thanks, and you?" It would be like asking your mailman, "How are you today?" and him standing on your front porch for twenty minutes telling you about every step in his day so far. So in addition to being nocturnal, I am also completely neurotic.

But no matter how I feel about it, no matter what I do to try to interrupt this "Groundhog Day" style of living, it keeps perpetuating. I think it's time to come to terms with that. Maybe I just work better this way. Maybe my Dad was right, and I just work on a different clock. Maybe there are scads of us out there, feeling needlessly guilty for not having the sleeping habits of Mike and Carol Brady.

So I say, if you think you're an insomniac, try going nocturnal for a little while if your life allows it. It may be the answer you never considered. Then again, you may just be a vampire.