Tuesday, March 28, 2023

LIFE CYCLES

 As I have grown ancient older, I've found some differences in my life.

Oh there are the obvious things like doctor visits and eyeglasses and various other devices to prolong my span of years.

But I was thinking of my sleep cycle.

When I was younger I stayed awake until late at night, either carousing with friends or reading a book that kept me in thrall.

And I could sleep half the day if my schedule allowed it.

(It usually didn't, which accounts for the lines in my face.)

But now in my dotage Golden Years, I find the arms of Morpheus taking hold earlier and earlier.

Some times there is a wakeful period in the middle of the night and sometimes I sleep through the dark hours.

But frequently I find myself waking and rising for the day at around 6 a.m.

When this first started I found it unusual.


But I've grown accustomed to it and rather enjoy being awake for the dawning of the light.

There are other things that have changed in my life, too.

For example, The Imaginary Gods used to say coffee was bad for us.

Then it was good for us.

The same with red wine and chocolate and even red meat.

(I never went along with their affection for kale, by the way.)

So I've decided to just ignore all of their well-meaning advice and live out my years as I prefer.

Well I might heed the advice of an old-timer, Benjamin Franklin.

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

But other than that I'll ignore the punditry.

After all -

16 comments:

  1. I LOVE waking before the birds. Your post was fun to read. Very funny. Love the six out of ten people! What a hoot. Cheers, Ivy.

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  2. I love the way you write!!

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  3. I've always been an early riser; usually 4 am most of my life. But in the past years I've upped it by an hour and love that quiet time even in the winter. Happy that my spouse sleeps until 5:30. Once it gets warmer and lighter in the morning, I'll have my doors open and sometimes sit outside. A lot of coyote howling, owl hooting in those early hours.

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  4. DICTIONARY CORNER for TRUMP SUPPORTERS:
    "carousing" = drinking lots of beer, laughing at unfunny jokes, smoking, listening to loud music and chasing women (or men if you prefer).
    "Benjamin Franklin" = Famous old American guy who you can see on a $100 dollar bill. He had long hair like a girl or a goddam hippy!
    "kale" = nasty green stuff you can eat. Not available in McDonalds.
    Morpheus = Dude in Marvel comics. He was in "Moon Knight"

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  5. I get up at 8 but am awake before then. Just lazy. Usually the thought of my very unhealthy but tasty mocha drags me out of bed.

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  6. I love the "surprised" coffee! I had a wakeful night last night, after tossing and turning for two hours I got up and read a few blogs, surfed around on realestatedotcom, read a few chapters in my book and eventually went back to bed at 5am then slept soundly until 9.30am. Nights like that just throw out the whole routine of my days.

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  7. from Cheerful Monk, keep forgetting to add that.

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  8. I've always been a night person. My ideal job would be from about 11 - 5. Alas, the world doesn't work that way, so I'm always sleep deprived. I can't wait to be retired and set my own schedule.

    P.S. I read somewhere that in the old old old days people slept when they were sleepy and so they had multiple naps throughout the day instead of the 8 hours we've all been told we need. But then again, they didn't have to punch a clock.

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  9. I thought when I retired that I would sleep in some mornings and have a lazy relaxing morning but I still wake up when I did when I worked!
    Now I can "waste" time on the computer reading blogs and commenting, so my mornings can be lazy in a different way.

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  10. You didn't mention the aches in all the various joints.

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  11. Wait til you reach this stage -- go to bed, sleep, get up and tinkle, sleep, get up and tinkle, sleep etc....

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  12. Last night I slept about 90 minutes, wide awake at 1am...never went back to sleep, now it's 8pm and I feel great.

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