Last week I started to feel comfortable with the whole routine of getting up at 3:30 am, coming home for a brief nap and then going to bed at an hour so early that toddlers would mock me for being a weenie.
My 680 News colleague Kevin Misener nailed it when he said the feeling wasn’t normal but it was familiar. Bang on. I did this early morning thing for so many years that it isn’t as much of a shock to the system as it might be to someone who’s always been a 9-to-5-er.
People ask how it feels.
It feels as if I went to sleep right now and didn’t wake up for 100 years I would still be tired.
It feels like someone stuffed any extra room in my brain cavity with cotton balls and then asked me to solve a complex mathematical problem.
It feels like the chubby fists of a thousand tiny babies are pummelling my head; it’s not truly painful but consistently uncomfortable.
It feels like I can actually hear my brain churning as it tries to solve the most mundane problems, like, does the milk go in the cupboard and the clean dishes go into the fridge?
It feels like I could be one small step from forgetting my own name and address and be found wandering the streets in my pyjamas mumbling “680 Newstime” to passers-by.
Oh I’ll get used to it all over again, I know I will. But my pal Kevin is right. It’s definitely not normal!
… but then, what’s normal? In many ways its like that familiar old friend, that which you have an unspoken ease and comfort with such that you simply slip back into the old routine as though you never were apart.