Early Birds

The dog days of summer are definitely here.

Last Friday, I finished up working for the summer. After a two week stint teaching film to teenagers at a summer camp, full of early morning commutes to the University of British Columbia and 10 hour days, I kicked my feet up that Friday night and finally got to call this time my own. No more obligations until school’s back in, finally!

Now, I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself. I keep waking up in the late morning, and don’t actually leave my room until noon or so. If you know me, this isn’t my style.

When I get time to do absolutely nothing, and I don’t use that time optimally, I can’t help but feel a little ashamed of myself. I didn’t leave my house until about 4:30 yesterday afternoon. You can accomplish things without leaving the house, but I didn’t do anything I set out to do, namely cleaning my damn room. Instead, I left and bought a new dress and cake. I’m a disgrace.

In most situations, I am an early bird. I wake up before my host when I stay the night, and usually spend a good half of an hour tinkering around in their kitchen trying to figure out where their coffee is and how I work their coffee maker. It’s not typically because I couldn’t sleep on their bed, it’s usually because I just tend to wake up early. Or, if I happen to wake up early, I don’t fight it.

Now, waking up early isn’t easy at all. Far from it. But once that’s done, I find I feel lighter, happier, and more hopeful about the things I can do on that given day. See, I had the early shifts this year in my radio practicum this year, and the first day was hell. But after that, I found that being done at 9 am with an entire day, and full energy by then, was such a treat. There is something remarkable about being hours into your day when everyone else is coming in ‘early’. Watching the rest of the world wake up is a bit refreshing.

So, essentially it’s like I’ve been wasting hours of my day to sleep, and my entire circadian rhythm has been thrown off. It’s possible that when you spend your time doing nothing day in and day out, you feel more exhausted.

At the very least, in this trying time, I’ve found out I’m just an early riser.