Shine On

I've never been a morning person. Sunrises are pretty, but I much prefer the sunset. And sleeping in.
I prefer to stay up until all hours of the night. 1am, 2 am, even 3. It's when I feel most creative.

I would love nothing better than to be able to wake up each morning naturally, having slept until my body wants to wake, with the noon-time sun blazing on my face. Sigh. A girl can dream.

This morning as my alarm went off, it played the song "Shine On" by Rascal Flatts. That's been my alarm for the past three years. But this morning, as I hit snooze for the second time and entered the last phase of my self-mandated un-groggify time (the time required to really wake up and escape the lingering sleepiness) I began to contemplate the connection between that song and my childhood.

No, I was not a child when that song came out. But the name of the song is "Shine On." Every school morning of my childhood my Dad would come into my room and say to me "Good morning, Princess! Time to rise and shine!"

Two things would happen:
1. I pretended not to be and would turn over and go back to sleep. Even though I was immediately awake when he walked in the door every morning, I'm a light sleeper.

2. Much to my chagrin, I would get angry! Mad! I hated waking up. I was tired! In those groggy morning moments my childhood perspective blamed my Dad for having to get up in the morning! And for being so &*($%& happy that *(&(*^^ early in the morning! I mean, who does that?? (Apparently a lot of people do, I'm just not one of them!)

A few minutes later, Dad would come back in, chipper as ever to "wake me up again." (Except for the one day I refused, point blank to get up and go to early-morning Seminary. [Mormon morning Bible & Book of Mormon study for high school kids.] I don't remember why exactly, I was probably just being a teenager, but after four or five wake-up attempts by my Dad, he got mad and threw a glass of water on me. The water, not the glass. I just turned over and went back to "sleep." Yup, I was a punk.)

Nowadays I wake myself up automatically, my body feels 5:59 am! Gone are the days of teenagerness when I could sleep until noon, or two or just about anytime I wanted. If I don't wake up automatically now, my alarm does jolts me to wakefulness. And I think it's funny that some small part of me thought that "Shine On" was the appropriate song to use. It's a great message. But it also reminds me of my Dad.

Sure, I was a pill to him in being so cranky in the mornings. (But seriously, who gets up at 4am every morning happy??? My Dad!) But now it's all a fond memory.

Do I want to go back to those days of childhood? Not in a million years. I still hate mornings.

But I'm learning to be happier about them. Slowly. Very, very slowly.