10 Nov 2014
Early birds are not human. The possession of boundless energy before noon, without the help of artificial stimulants, is plain wrong. As Garfield once said: “If people were meant to pop out of bed first thing in the morning, they’d sleep in a toaster.”
Morning people are unutterably smug, since the science is on their side. They are healthy, efficient and organised. They are higher achievers, have happier dispositions and they live longer.
These freaks can rise with the lark and run three miles whilst mentally compiling their Christmas list and using bluetooth to hold a meeting. On an average day they have completed more tasks than I will in a week, and they never tire of telling me about it. They are deliberately chirpy, wilfully bouncy and rudely alert.
My mornings always start with the impossible comfort of my bed. During the night my duvet has adopted me as its own; to leave it now seems like a cruel act of betrayal. This is quickly followed by denial. It isn’t really time to get up. I can hit snooze a couple more times. I think my clock might be wrong. It isn’t morning.
Then comes bargaining: if I stay in bed for five more minutes I will forgo makeup/shower faster/give the kids breakfast in the car. I’ll do anything for just ten more minutes of………yeah I seem to be asleep again. Bliss.
This leads to a brutal rush when I finally shoehorn myself from the bed. I am running late, which in itself makes me unutterably vile.
I was told many times that when I had children I would become a morning person out of necessity. I would go to sleep earlier, get up earlier and have the required energy to start my day on time. This is simply untrue. Now that I have kids I am equally foul tempered, but now I have witnesses.
I have tried to adjust to the early bird lifestyle but it just doesn’t work. There are too may cocktails to drink, films to see and books to read into the small hours for me to go to bed before midnight, and even if I try I simply lie awake, resenting all the fun I am missing. For some reason I am genetically programmed to come alive as the sun goes down and there is nothing I can do about it.
I am resigned to the fact that I do not do mornings. If you speak to me before enough caffeine has circulated I will be two scoops of foul in a bowlful of bitchy, and that’s on a good day. While you were out smiling and greeting people with the non sequitur: “Good Morning!” I used the time to drink three cups of coffee and plot your death.
