Crossover

I've noticed it slowly happening over the past several months, but in the last few days it's become increasingly obvious. My body is slipping steadily back into old habits.

Namely, staying awake all night and sleeping late into the day.

On one hand, I suppose it doesn't really matter, being that I don't have a job. On the other, it doesn't bode well for adjusting should I ever find one that requires me to be coherent before noon.

The trouble is, it's a difficult habit to break, particularly when I have absolutely no compelling reason to be out of bed before 11:00am, other than some feeble notion that "normal people" or "adults" get up at a certain time.

Honestly, I wonder where that notion comes from. I mean, in my specific case, it would be my parents. They're both fairly early risers (though I assure you that wasn't always the case) and subtly frown on me when I sleep well into the daylight hours. For the rest of the world--or the U.S. at least--I suppose it comes from the 9-5, the "real" members of the "grown-up" workforce that rise at 6am, eat breakfast, don a suit and tie and head off to the office.

But why should that be the measure of adulthood? Why should I try to deny my body's natural rhythms in answer to the call of a workforce that has never held any interest for me?

The answer to that question is, clearly, that I shouldn't.

Which I suppose makes the real question: why do I feel compelled to do so anyway? Or, at the very least, why do I feel like I should be compelled to do so, and therefore feel guilt that I do not?

I have no answers, and truly, when you get right down to it, it's hardly worth losing sleep over.

I certainly won't.