Everything old is new again…

Bedtime.

The ended games and broken rules of childhood versus the sweet sinking of adulthood as you close your eyes and finally, finally sink into your pillows and pull that comforter over your head. As a kid, bedtime always got pushed back, again and again, for one last page, one last page until I was forced to put the book away and turn the light out. Adulthood has followed a similar pattern: one last addition to tomorrow’s syllabus, one last paper to grade, one last dish to clean, blanket to fold and, as always, one last page.

As my mother is no longer standing at the foot of the stairs policing my pre-bed habits, I’ve decided to start doing it myself. And so: bedtime. It’s retro. It’s cool. It’s somewhere between ten o’clock and ten-thirty, depending on whether tomorrow is a school day or a gym day.

I’ve lost a bit from this new procedure. My evenings are much shorter. I am behind on the lives of some of my favorite television characters. I have to balance my school prep time a little better, and dinner has become a far less elaborate affair.

The gains have been more substantial. Since Sunday night, when the new plan was implicated, I have far more energy, I have time for the gym before work (except on school days), my skin is better, and my appetite is smaller. Also, I have this increasing feeling of me time, the idea that work is no longer the exact center of my day (and every time I think this, especially at the gym, I get a vision of CJ on the treadmill during the Pilot, before she falls down…and I hold onto the elliptical machine for dear life).

I know as the semester grows busier and more stressful, it will be harder and harder to stick to this new habit, but I’m going to try. I think it is possibly one of the best decisions I could make for my general health and well-being.