Identity Crisis

I'm at work early today because I'm leaving at 3:00.  This required getting up at 5:30, which is nowhere near a reasonable hour of the day.  But it turned out to be alright.  I took a nice, hot shower, made my coffee, took the dog out (I'm at That Guy's place dog-sitting while he's in D.C.), ate some breakfast, and then hit the road with my travel mug.  I listened to yesterday's podcast of The Dave Ramsey Show during my 45-minute commute (urg.), and by the time I got to work, I was ready to appreciate the hour of quiet I'll have before everybody else starts arriving for the day.

And yet I always say I'm not a morning person.  These days it feels especially difficult to be out of bed by 7:30, not to mention 5:30 AM.  But maybe it's more of a people thing than a morning thing.  I remember my old apartment here in the city, the one I had before I tried to save some money by getting a place with roommates.  My favorite time of day was early morning.  The sun would just be rising, the whole building was quiet (I lived in a converted boarding house built in the 1910s, so there were only four apartments total), and I'd make my breakfast and sit in my quiet kitchen reading and eating for 45 minutes before I had to leave for work sometimes. 

Even if I'm not a morning person, I know for a fact that I'm not a night owl either.  That Guy is, and when we first started dating, it would nearly kill me when he'd call at 11:00 PM, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to talk about our days.  I was always happy to talk to him, and I still would be, but eventually I had to say, "Dude... I love you, but OH EM GEE." I'm more of a daytime person, I guess?  I could be up at 8:00, be extremely productive between about 10:30 and 6:30, and then be in bed and asleep by 11 or 11:30.  That's kind of my ideal.  Once I hit midnight I start to feel kind of anxious about getting to sleep at all.

But I certainly do see the beauty of mornings.  Maybe when I have kids, I'll be more of an early-riser.  I know lots of moms, including my own, who cherish the quiet time they get before kids and husbands are awake.  Actually, when I stay with my parents (which I do sometimes, just because), I love getting up early with my mom.  We have some of our best conversations at six o'clock in the morning.

So what are you, invisible reading public?  Morning person?  Daywalker?  Night owl?