When It's The Middle Of The Night...And Your Clock Is Telling You To Lie

Sometimes, getting a good night's sleep isn't a given. It's actually never a given, considering all the things that can happen to a person, but in our modern society, we usually get a good night's sleep (unless, of course, you have a newborn in the house...).

We do not have a newborn or multiple newborns in the house, so that excuse for finding myself awake in the middle of the night isn't valid. We do have a cat that likes to go in and out at various times--and we don't have a cat door. 

So, last night was a tough one for me. And I blame my inability to sleep partially on a writing deadline that arrives tomorrow night. Each time I woke up, thoughts about the assignment went though my head again and again. 

Makes sleeping tough.

On those occasions when I can't sleep I actually don't want to look over at my illuminated alarm clock. Thankfully, I did not have work this morning--that's the worst, knowing exactly how much time you don't have until you need to leave the bed and go to work. No, I try and avoid knowing how much sleep I'm missing. But this morning, I did glance over and I saw it was exactly 3:17am.

Interesting thing about that, because rarely am I looking directly at clock the proper angle while I'm lying down. My head is sideways on the pillow and so I see the numbers more vertical than horizontal. I could not, however, prevent my mind from seeing the numbers upside-down and so my alarm clock was telling me to lie.

I can take this a couple of ways. It can be reminding me to lie down, and stay that way. After all, it's more difficult to fall asleep if I'm not lying down.

Then, the alarm clock may be telling me to be untruthful. That's an interesting thought. Exactly who am I supposed to lie to? My wife who's asleep next to me? The dog that's snoring on a pillow at the foot of our bed? Myself? Sorry, alarm clock. I don't think I can carry that one out.

Yes, there's other words upside-down numbers make on my alarm clock. Perhaps if I wake up at those times, my mind will give me a more practical command. We'll see.

Monday Morning...

Some days are just plain crappy. There are bad days, where you get a flat tire or you catch a cold. Then there are other days where you'd pray to have those problems. And when the country has a bad day, where the lives of thousands are literally destroyed, it's sometimes hard to find something to write about.

I usually don't mention current events in this blog. With social media and the internet, everyone can spew their opinions--and most do. Another viewpoint just gets lost in the haze. 

So, how do I approach a blog post after such a terrible day? Do I try to be funny? That seems disrespectful. Should I be contemplative and discuss the larger issues of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil? Even those opinions don't make sense when people act in a senseless manner.

I've been thinking about what to write and I decided to include a picture of my alarm clock almost 12 hours after it became the first thing I saw this morning. For many, 6:29am (or, 6:24am--the actual time I woke up...) is early enough. My problem this morning was that's almost one hour after I usually get up, almost one hour after my alarm usually goes off.

Funny thing about alarms--they work great if they're set beforehand. That's right--I totally forgot to set my alarm. There's been times when I have inadvertently turned off my alarm in the middle of the night, for one reason or another. This time, I just didn't remember to do it last night.

Sleeping in, even an hour, means I miss my bus and so I drive. That means, because I leave later, the traffic is worse both going in, and driving home. Add to the fact that the building's security system reset over the weekend and didn't let me in made this particular Monday morning not the best.

Then, after logging into my computer at work, I read about what happened only a few hours earlier in Las Vegas. Oh, if we could all have such bad Monday mornings as what happened to me. God bless those who grieve, those who mourn, those involved. God bless us all to learn, to forgive, to love.