During the last two weeks, I have been doing something I have not done my whole life. I have been setting my alarm clock.  But more than that, I have been waking up to my alarm clock. I have never done that before. I have always been proud of my internal clock. I just tend to know what time it is, at all times.   I can time things just right as well.  And, I have always just woken up by when I needed to.  I have traveled much for work in the past decade and I never needed to get a wake up call.  I just know when it is time.  I could have been one of those knocker uppers from any, many decades back. You know, those people that would knock on people’s windows to wake them up.   What an odd job that must have been. But I would have been great at it at some point in my life.  Because I had great PER (protein) levels in my brain once upon a time.

Yet, these days I cannot wake up without an alarm. I have been going to sleep at around midnight or later with a lot on my mind, And, I have been waking up at 5am everyday.  I have been a coffee-drinking, breakfast-making, dog-walking zombie. I think all those years of waking up on time has finally given way to the weight of the days. Now, I curse an alarm at the break of dawn and sleepily run down the stairs to get everything going in the kitchen.   You would think I would will myself to go to sleep early and yet I just cannot. I can’t go to sleep and I cannot wake up.

Exhale. Inhale. Sigh.

Sleep will come. I can only hope. I may just want to cut back on my Coke Zero and coffee intake. But they taste so good and keep me going throughout the day. I could get rid of my Netflix account. However, I need it to unwind.   I need to sit and think through this and develop a plan. But I am not too sure that I even have time to do that. But I could try to watch some awful show in the hopes of it making me sleepy. I can also just try to will myself again to start waking up on time by the sheer power of my suggestion.

I think I can. I think I can.