We're morning people now
At this point, my husband E and I have been jokingly saying "we're morning people now" for about a week. "Oh boy, 9pm, better get to bed. We're morning people now." "Did you set an alarm?" "Yup, for 7am." "But tomorrow is Saturday..." "Well, we're morning people now."
You get the idea.
It started last Monday because the movers were coming at 8am, but the friend who recommended these movers warned that they would probably be early. We were ready for them at 7:30, their truck pulled up at 7:45, and they stood around smoking cigarettes until 7:50, when they rang the bell.
We slept badly the night before - me because I was anxious about moving day, and E because there was a mosquito in the bedroom - so we were excited for a good night's sleep at the new place. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was not to be. Sleeping in new locations is rarely as restful as sleeping in familiar ones, but mostly it was our cat keeping us awake as she prowled around our new home, meowing. She'd had a much more stressful day than us, and so we couldn't really be upset with her.
When our alarm went off at 7am (the technicians setting up our internet would be arriving sometime between 8am and noon and we had to be ready for them), it was a relief. Permission to stop trying to sleep in these suboptimal conditions.
Now, I realize 7am isn't that early for a lot of people, and functioning on a couple bad nights of sleep is everyday life for a lot of folks. But I am not one of those people. When people ask if I'm more of a morning person or a night owl, I tell them that I'm neither - I am a sleepy person.
So, I was exhuasted all day last Tuesday between two nights of bad sleep in a row and the stress of moving and the heat (it was only in the 80's, but we moved to a top floor apartment that holds heat).
I slept well that evening, which was a relief, but E woke up before 6am on Wednesday morning and was wide awake. (I never wake up feeling wide awake, what a novel experience that would be.) This worked out well because we wanted to get an early start. We needed to do some cleaning at the old apartment, so, after I sent out issue #5 of this newsletter, we headed over to Hellweg (a German home improvement store) to pick up a few supplies. The store opened at 8am, and we weren't there that early, but we arrived before 9am, and it was just... so chill and calm.
That was when we realized, "wow, it's nice to be awake and showered, have eaten breakfast, done some writing, and run errands before 9am." We realized we wished we were morning people. And then we realized that, at least to some degree (natural inclinations towards sleepiness aside), we're in control of that.
So, we're morning people now.
(We'll see how long this lasts.)