Eight's Not That Late

I made reservations for Valentine's Day at a ritzy sushi bar in Winston-Salem, about forty-five minutes away. Because we both worked until 4 that day, I requested a table for eight o’clock because until we got home, changed, and headed out (after taking care of the dogs, too), I didn’t want us to feel rushed. As we drove to our romantic dinner, we both felt more and more like this reservation time was a bit beyond the pale. It was not that either of us were opposed to a romantic evening out. We were just in doubt about how late it was getting and how tired we both felt. Reserving a table for eight meant that, until we parked, walked to the restaurant, got seated, ordered, got the food, ate, had dessert, paid the check and headed back to our car, it would be a very long 45-minute drive home, in the dark, on a Friday night, after a long and exhausting week, well past our usual bedtime.

When I originally made the plans, I only thought about how nice it would be for us to have a romantic evening at a fancy restaurant. We eat out fairly often, but we rarely go full-on fancy. I felt we deserved to get dolled up and go out on the town. I paid no attention to how late the reservation was (or how far away it was) because I didn’t consider that we would be worn out. It seemed quite reasonable. In almost no way was eight o’clock that “late”. 

I have attended meetings and been invited to events set to begin at eight and never turned a hair. People in Spain don’t settle into their dinners until the sun is on the horizon. Movies start at eight. When I was a kid, the local channels all had an eight o’clock movie and some primetime shows (like MacGyver and The A-Team) started at eight. Back then, I used to long to be allowed to stay up past eight so I could watch these shows and movies. After the movies and the news, Johnny Carson came on. TV was just getting started. There were hours of wonderful programming just waiting to be stared at, back then. It seemed like no one I knew was ever in bed before eleven. 

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One of the challenges of my adult life is remembering how old I am. It’s not that the number is important so much, but that I tend to feel mentally less old than I physically am. I’ve checked with the appropriate members of the Bare clan—my good aunt, Pops and my brother—and it seems that this is a common theme. Despite our varied years, none of us feels mentally our age. This has caused some kerfuffle between me and myself because there is an aspect of my physical person that is becoming rather set in routine, and when eight o’clock rolls around, that part begins to yawn and blink stupidly. Yes, we wake up early during the work week, but I feel the same way on the weekends now, too. The early-to-bed routine is in direct antipathy to the part of my brain that is, at heart, still young and ready to stay up watching late night TV.

I’ve asked this inner youth how old he is, but he not only doesn’t say, he doesn’t seem to care. What the hell does age matter when you’re young and headstrong and oblivious to consequences? All he seems to know is that he is very ready to goof around, cut up and be generally unreconstructed. At least he’s consistent, I guess.

It’s not that I don’t have physical energy. I do. I’m very ready to run and be full of action, as always, but it has limits. This isn’t something the inner youth wants to hear or acknowledge. As a result, he thinks that if we stay up, it will be like when I really was a youth, and I will just be able to bounce back the next day. It is as if he is saying, “You’re going to be groggy in the morning either way, so why not have fun tonight?” It makes me feel like a fuddy duddy, but in point of fact, I like going to bed early. I like our routine. With all my wasted days as a youth sleeping in and staying up late, it feels nice to have a set time for getting ready to go to bed.

This makes me sound old, but I’m not old. There’s no metric (except from a small person for whom age is but a misty construct) where I meet this geriatric definition, yet. Sure, I’m older than I was, and I will (hopefully) continue to get even older, but that is the only way age is part of the discussion. I don’t feel like some dottery old gaffer and even the octa and nonagenarians in the family still feel remarkably spry, so even when I am old, I doubt that I’ll feel it. 

Over the last few years, though, I’ve certainly settled down and gotten a little more grounded in a set daily schedule. That’s always good. However, compared to my mental age, my body seems to be definitely getting more set in its ways, and the contrariness of the kid within is sometimes a little hard to deal with. Never is this more the case than when the evening closes over, and the eighth hour past noon hits and the yawning starts. My pragmatic half starts listing all the things that I have to do before I can leap into the sack, and then I know it’s time for me to start making “revolutions” for bed. The inner kid, on the other hand, wants to stay up “just a little longer”. One more chapter, one more episode, one more cup of cocoa. What’s an hour between friends? This must be how my parents felt trying to get me to go to sleep when I was a shin nipper.

The funny thing is, unlike when I was that younger fellow, I actually like to go to bed early. It is one of my favorite things to do. Sliding between the sheets and reclining vertically is a blessed sensation. Few better. Each night as part of our routine, I take a cup of hot peppermint tea with honey into the bedroom, and I sip it while we watch a few episodes of our favorite comedy programs. Unlike when I was a kid, when one had not only to be in bed but also had to have all the lights out, lying down with tea while we watch TV counts as bedtime. Once the eyelids start flapping, we cut off the idiot box, and sleep takes me almost immediately. It’s actually really a wonderful sensation; tummy warm with herbal tea, comfy and snuggly and peaceful. I love it. 

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Some nights, I can honestly say that I sleep the whole night, except for a midnight trip to the bathroom or to sip some water. Other nights, I am launched from the depth of dreams into wakefulness with awful, shattering suddenness. It is usually about 11 o’clock, give or take a quarter of an hour, and it takes me several minutes to get calm again. Sometimes, I cannot cool down for a while, and I roll and tumble a bit. If the blast of energy is strong, I have to get up, walk around the house, moan a bit, check the doors, peep out the front windows, wander the halls and corridors and sip water until I feel sleepy and calm enough put the onion back on the pillow and give the dreamless another try.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why this happens, but I have often wondered if my younger self thinks that I’m dozing at a party like a bore and jerks me awake so that I’m not an embarrassment to myself or others. I was rarely ever the drowsy type in my youth, except in Mr. Kugle’s history class.

There was a time, not that long ago, when we stayed up later than we do now, but when I was a kid, I used to stay up very late indeed. Most nights, I wouldn’t even start thinking about lying down until the sun was rising in the east, and then I would catch fresh hell for sleeping in until well past noon. There were whole summer weekends when I didn’t sleep at all or only very little. With no real parental oversight for my later teen years, I would regularly be awake until well past the witching hour. This was true during the school year, too, and I still somehow managed to get up, shower and dress and get to school reasonably awake. Maybe I was a zombie for some of it, but it didn’t really matter because when the sun started to set, I came alive. This led to me being called a ‘night owl’ (is there any other kind?) by people older than me who either envied or resented my ability to stay up.

I burned the midnight oil with such effect that I actually missed whole days, either because I was asleep or because I could not remember anything while I was the walking dead. I didn't operate any heavy machinery, luckily (unless a lawn mower counts), but I was likely a danger to myself and others, even so. Years later, when I ran with a crowd that was often out very late, I specifically enjoyed having camaraderie with people who, as Rick Ocasic so eloquently put it, liked the nightlife, baby. The nighttime was the right time, and I enjoyed every minute of it. At least, I think I did. Much of that time was also spent taking drink as well, so some of it is forgotten for other reasons, I’m ashamed to say.

Once married and raising kids, there was usually a bit of contention about how late I slept on the weekends, especially from my father-in-law, who liked for me to help with projects when we were visiting. He was easier on me than his own kids or than my folks were with me, but it bugged me. 

After we moved to our current house, we often stayed out with friends or wandered home late and woke up and started a new day with not very much sleep. We talk about it now with chagrin. Weekends were worse. Sometimes, we drove home from a friend’s house or a party quite late indeed. We didn’t feel weird about it at the time because we were with other adults who did the same. But then, suddenly and without notice, the circadian rhythms rebelled. One day, we went out to a friend’s house and about the time the sun was setting, we looked at each other, nodded silently, and said our goodbyes, and went home to bed. Not long after that, it started to become a habit. Now, it is just how we roll.

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Part of this newer, more mature routine has been solidified by our dogs. They are older and routine-focused too. Our pug would lay on one of our laps, snuggled and snoring for hours most days (if we let him). The beagle is a little more sensitive to the daily plan. She knows when we wake up (usually), and she knows the schedule so well that she is often wandering around in the den, waiting for us to get the message about going to bed. On Saturdays, when we can afford to stay abed for a few extra hours, they require me to get up and take the two of them outside briefly before going back to lay down.

Whereas I used to be able to sleep until one and snap awake with full energy as a teen, I’m now conscious of how fast time seems to go, and so, after a little drowsing, I feel the need to get up and at least get the kettle going and the coffee dripping. I may not have made the connection before, but since our days off are limited, I like to get moving and try to make the most of them, and the dogs seem to agree.

Most weekday mornings, it takes the carcass a little bit to warm up. I have to sit up, swing my feet over the edge of the bed and reflect on life for a few moments before the motor is purring. Some mornings are, depending on the weather and the restlessness of the night before, better than others, but I’m almost always up to speed within the first ten minutes. If not, when I head outside with the pups, the chill predawn air definitely kicks me awake. Even so, I’m never fully bright-eyed until I've had my first sip of Irish Breakfast or Earl Grey, and it takes a hot shower to get me bushy-tailed. By the time I arrive at work, I’m usually full of energy and ready for the day. 

Maybe because we start so early and are so inured to it, things start to slow down a bit by eight. We are busy adults with full-time jobs, commitments, hobbies, plans, chores, pets and meals to prepare, so by the time eight rolls around again, we’re usually running on empty for the day. To me, the thought of going out with friends or a late party is absolutely beyond me. I’d almost rather stay home, not that any of our friends go out much themselves. 

Despite what the younger inner me thinks, I have come to believe that this is just a comfortable middle-aged reality. The kids are grown and independent, our days are less harried. We actually have the freedom to develop a schedule that doesn’t keep us out at ballparks or spring choral events or parent nights until all hours. There was a time when the lads were smaller, when we used to go skidding into bed, and crashed before we hit the pillow. Life was busier then. When the boys got older, we had a little more time to settle ourselves into a routine that gave us a bit more free time than we had been used to, and we still had the energy and desire to go out on the town. Now that we have evened out into this new stage of life, we’re finding that routine is really healing and helpful and that, all told, eight o’clock is the perfect time to wrap things up for the day. The inner me may not like it, but we do, and the dogs are in full agreement, so there’s little point in arguing. 

So, while eight o'clock is not a sentence, it is a sanctuary. The inner youth can sulk, but he'll just have to live with it. After all, even he has to admit, there's a certain rebellious thrill in knowing that the 'late' nights of my past have finally been outgrown. Our quiet contentment is my own, hard-won, middle-aged act of defiance, and it is a compromise with that sullen lad. If I want to feel spry, I need to get rest.

As for next Valentine’s day, though, I think I’ll cook a homemade romantic dinner, or maybe, since it falls on a Saturday, next year, I’ll arrange for us to go somewhere in the early afternoon and incorporate a picnic or something else that occurs well before the sun goes down. That way, once we’re on our way back home, we can still be in bed by eight, not because we’re old, but because we have a routine that makes eight not that late.