Ever since I can remember, I have been a night owl. That is, when the rest of the people of the world seems to slow down, start glancing at their watches and yawning in that suggestive way to their spouses, my body and mind come awake and I am good to go for at least a few more hours. When the going gets tired, the tough get wired.

I cannot honestly predict when this change occurred but I am not entirely unsure that it hasn’t been this way my entire life. I remember when I had a bedtime of 8 or 8:30pm and would go, grudgingly, to bed, but I would lie awake for what seemed hours, listening to the rhythms of the house, the wind and sunshine outside, feeling along my body for the various sensations of the blankets, my pajamas, and just thinking. At some point or another I would drift off and be gone for the night, but I never knew when it happened.

In my teenage years, I would often spend long hours in bed but reading a book or writing, depending on what my fancy was that evening. My parents would have to yell and/or threaten to remove books, lights, and/or electricity from my room in order to get me to go to sleep on time. I just never had the motivation to do so. However, once I got to sleep, I was near impossible to wake up and I could sleep till all hours of the day, something that chagrined my sister and others to no end.

College years came and my night owlish abilities actually seemed, for the most part, to be a boon to my experience. I was able to stay up late much easier than my classmates if required to finish a project or simply get work done. I seemed to suffer less from the loss of sleep and found it much easier to sleep in late to compensate for the late nights. I have, it seems, always been able to “bank” tiredness — to take a loan on my sleep and repay it later without too many repercussions. Of course, one can only borrow so much before your body forecloses; however, that has only happened a few times for me. The times it has happened I’ve done such things as completely miss all classes for the day, etc.

Now in my later years I am a part of the “great work force” and am forced to work an 8-6 job. Thus, I have to get up early — 7:30ish most mornings. Personally, I find this schedule torturous. Not only must I get up at an ungodly hour (nobody should be awake before 10am, in my oh-so-humble opinion) but I am no longer able to easily “bank” my sleep till later. While my mornings are forced to be early, my body still ramps up in the evenings like always.

Few people understand it. Most shake their heads and declare that I’m nuts; I assure you, I am not. At least not completely. I simply find that around 10pm every night, my body and mind wake up and are ready to churn for at least a few more hours. A typical night will have me finally getting to bed anywhere from 12:30 to 2:30am. Of course, by that time I am truly exhausted, having been up for 19 hours at a stretch, and I fall asleep like the dead, only to rise up again in 5 to 6 hours to start it all over again. Thus, my weekends usually involve some sort of sleeping-in to recover my lost hours.

Some day I hope to find a job that allows me the flexibility to get to work mid-morning and work until I am done at night; right now I have to leave by 6pm without an option for staying later and coming in later. I find that very restrictive; as all good geeks know, our inspiration and motivation comes in streaks. When you get a good one, ride it out.

Until then, I’m struggling along with my sleep schedule (or lack thereof) and work in between. Not that there aren’t distinct advantages to staying up later. In fact, I think some people really miss out on some things because they go to bed too early.

For instance, everything fun happens after 10pm. That is my true determination. Nobody gets really and truly crazy until the tenth hour at least. After that, anything goes. You can observe the drunks trying to hold up trees, the nutty teenagers doing whatever pantomime of their friends is appropriate at the moment, and the neighbors doing odd things that National Geographic hasn’t even documented yet. The vastly-interesting characters tend to drive by in the middle of the night; animals wander around looking lost in the sea of pavement and brick, and the damned birds have shut up for the night. Bats whiz overhead, stars, moon, and shooting meteors whiz by around you if you only look.

Another thing I feel I get to witness — my wife. Being the night owl that I am, she is often in bed several hours before I am. While I don’t get the pleasure of falling asleep when she does (one that is certainly nice), I get the pleasure of watching her sleep for a short time before I drift off. Lying there in bed, I can glance over to where she is lying and watch her, snuggled in between the layers of blankets and pillows (she has about 20), fast asleep and breathing softly.

It is my opinion that when people sleep, they resemble the closest thing to being a child again. The worry and creases of their faces and bodies smooth out, they completely relax and fall limp. My bride is a beautiful woman; when she sleeps, she takes on angelic proportions in the simple cuteness and softness of her face and hands. Her highly-defined lips with their cute upturned bow are parted slightly as if she were whistling or about to kiss a dandelion. She is so calm — it makes you almost angry at the stresses of life and how they can tense someone up so much when they’re awake.

I also get to lie there and feel her next to me. The first few times I had to try to sleep in a bed with someone next to me were quite disturbing. I remember getting very little sleep at all since whenever that person would move, I would wake up. Now I relish the feeling of slipping between the sheets after a long day, settling into my pillow and stretching out my body, and feeling the radient warmth and presence of my sweetie lying beside me. Even if we don’t touch (we rarely touch while sleeping), there is the presence of her that is so familiar and comforting. Every now and then one of us will reach out tenderly with a toe or a hand, find the other, pat gently, and go back to sleep, reassured in the presence of each other. It’s one of the nicest pleasures I’ve found so far.

Going to bed late at night has distinct advantages, dear reader. If you don’t currently partake, I suggest you give it a try sometime. You might be pleasantly surprised.