It’s 3:00 AM I Must Be…Awake

Over the last few weeks I seem to have developed a knack for waking up at 3:00 AM in the morning. It’s usually around 3:37 or so and I can’t say I’m a fan. In addition to losing sleep there’s a giant crack in the ceiling that I can’t help but look at as I wait for slumber. I’ve patched it at least twice since we’ve moved in and then painted it before repainting it with the correct color of ceiling paint. Old homes are like that. Always in need of repair. Old people too.

Some people develop certain talents later on in life. Grandma Moses started painting when she was 78. Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t publish her first book until she was 65 although given all of the settling and moving around she did as a child that’s certainly understandable. Then we have me. At the ripe old age of 48 I seem to have discovered a gift for waking up in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn’t so long ago that I’d be going to bed at the same time I’m waking up. This irony isn’t so much lost on me as… well it is lost on me because I’m so damned tired and can’t remember my original point.

I’ve always been a bit concerned about people who wake up this early, at least the ones who do it on purpose. There always seems to be too much joie in their de vivre for these sorts of people to be emotionally well balanced and I suspect that a great many of them have a bunch of human feet in their freezer or at least a few fingers.

A few weeks ago I heard someone, I’ll call him Shane, mention that he really enjoyed waking up around 3:00 in the morning to watch the day unfold. Now I realize that this is a very healthy and enlightened way to greet the day and that this person could probably teach me a great deal about life but my first thought was that this had to be a cry for help. Who in God’s name wakes up this early on purpose unless their house is on fire or they’re trying to catch a flight?

And then I remembered a guy named Terry who lived across the hall from me in college. Terry would also wake up at 3:00 in the morning but not, mind you, to greet the new day with arms outstretched. Instead, Terry would smoke himself into oblivion until he passed out for the next five or six hours and then do the same thing around 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning at which point he would rise for the day, eat a late lunch and then retire back to his room for a nap.

It quickly occurred to me that I am at a crossroads when it comes to dealing with this newfound insomnia of mine. I could battle against it like Terry, albeit not in the same way, or I could embrace this opportunity for change like Shane. They are two very different philosophies and I can’t say that I’m inclined to either one of them. Being from the Midwest I tend to avoid extremes and those two ideas seem to be about as extreme as it gets.

Unless the authorities find Shane or Terry with a few limbs in their respective freezers I’ll not really know which way to lean or, to be more specific, whose philosophy to avoid. Until then I’ll just stare up at the crack in my ceiling and hope for sleep while I try to remember where I put the “right” shade of ceiling paint.

About the Author

derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.