Elizabeth Shippen Green, ca. 1902.

Nighttime was my first love.  When I was old enough to be cognizant of time (around three or four years old), I began having trouble going to bed at the appropriate hour. Twenty years later, thinking about darkness, shooting stars, whitish blue moonshadows on fields and houses, owls, sitting in yellow light doing crafts with a glass of red wine, evening parties, sitting on porches watching a navy sky turn to lampblack– all these things appeal to me and excite me. Orange juice, sunrise walks, ‘early bird’ anything…no.

Given these feelings, I’ve always had difficulty going to sleep on earlier schedules– for work, school, whatever. I’ve been on sleeping meds a couple of times, and been to see a sleep doc. During college I managed to find a groove in which I feel like I functioned really well, and performed at my best academically and felt energetic. That was around senior year, when I was going to sleep around 2 a.m. and waking up around 9 a.m.

With my new job, I have to go to bed around 11:30. It’s the pits, and I’m hardly ever able to sleep. I tried this natural supplement, Melatonin, which I got from a natural foods store nearby. That helped me sleep alright, but in the mornings I felt detached and weird, like my head was floating, also kinda like destroying something. So I stopped with that.

I didn’t realize there’s a name for what I have, but I guess it’s this: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Through researching it a little bit, I learned that most times it’s totally untreatable, and people with lifetime DSPS typically just find jobs that allow them to stay up a little later. I guess it’s good I’m trying out the writing world.