My name is Kimberly Siehl, I'm 20 years old, and I'm a late sleeper. Ever since I was a child, I have been able to sleep into the wee hours of the afternoon, only being greeted, once woken up, by the confused faces of family members. Since I've come to college, my sleeping habits have remained virtually the same. On one occasion during my freshman year, I slept so hard that I slept through a building-wide fire drill. Some might blame it on the alcohol, but I blame it on the REM cycle.
For those of you who also enjoy sleeping in late, welcome to the brotherhood.
Here are seven questions late sleepers are tired of hearing:
1. "Don't you hate wasting your day?"
Nothing irks me more than being asked this question. What if I came up to you and said, "Don't you hate being a grandma who rises with the sun and eats Activia for every meal?" You probably wouldn't. Here's the thing -- if I don't have class until 3:30 in the afternoon, why would I get out of bed at 9 a.m.? Whenever I get up early and have nothing to do, I wind up watching Netflix in bed all day or photoshopping my head onto a couples photo with Jim Halpert. Neither are productive. I'm an overworked and overtired college student who has very limited time to get a full night's sleep in. If I have a day off, you bet your sweet little ass that I'll be rolling out of bed at lunch time.
Here's a really realistic picture of what I look like when I wake up everyday:
2. "What are you going to do when you have a job?"
For some odd reason, people think that if a person sleeps in late that they will never be able to get up for important things. But let me tell you that, like bigfoot and a pleasurable DMV experience, this is huge myth. Just because someone gets up late every day doesn't mean they can't hear an alarm or get up and be productive when need be. Take me, for example. During my fall break, I was getting up between 11a.m. to 1 p.m everyday, except for the last day of break when I needed to be up and on a train to Manhattan by 7:30. I set my alarm, I got up, I got ready, and I got to the train with plenty of time to spare. Don't get me wrong- I was tired- but I could handle it. Give me some credit here, people!
Or I could just sleep on the job:
3. "Are you really just getting up NOW?"
Yes, Debbie, I am. What are you going to do about it? I always wake up in the morning (afternoon) with a bunch of texts that people sent me when they woke up, which is usually at some grotesque time like 8:30. So, naturally, as soon as I answer them when I do wake up, I get this question. Every. Single. Time. My friends should know this by now, why do they keep acting surprised?
If this puppy can sleep late then so can I!
4. "Don't your parents care that you sleep so late?"
Ah, yes. We've brought the parents into this. My parents have three daughters: one who traumatized the cat, one who accidentally put pledge on the wooden floors, and one who sleeps until noon. They've had to deal with our antics for years and I'm 100 percent sure that we have caused half of their grey hairs. So, to answer this question, no they don't care. Me being asleep for most of the morning gives them one less child to worry about. If I'm asleep, I can't ask for money or attention, or whatever it is that kids ask for these days. My slumber is a present.
Kanye is his own parent and if he wants to sleep, then he will sleep.
5. "Don't you have things to do?"
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Today I was going to solve world hunger, design an airplane, and pursue a doctorate in engineering. Too bad I slept until noon, now I can never accomplish all of these things!
To answer your question, yes, I do have things to do. Just because I sleep in doesn't mean I can't get work done. I sleep late and still get to class early, cook my meals, maintain a high GPA, and have time to participate in different organizations. It's all about planning and working around your own schedule.
Sometimes you just have to block out the haters
6. "Are you really going to take a nap?"
Ok, I'll admit this one is a little bit irrational. I don't speak for all people who sleep in late when I say this, but in my experience, sometimes I can get a full night's sleep and still be tired enough for a nap a few hours later. At first I thought I was just lazy, but now I realize that being stressed 24/7 really does take a toll on you. If I sleep all day and still need to take a nap, leave me alone and only wake me up if it's to show me a puppy video or to drink a coffee from dunkin donuts.
Sometimes the need to nap just hits you out of nowhere and you have to let it happen.
7. "Why don't you just go to sleep earlier?"
Honestly, I guess I could go to bed earlier, but I get the most thinking done at night. As well as the most work and relaxation. So if I stay up until 3 in the morning, I can assure you it's because I'm doing some weird combination of the three. Also, people fail to realize how hard it is to change a sleeping schedule. If I'm going to bed really late for weeks on end, why do you think I can, all of sudden, just snuggle into bed at 10 p.m. and fall asleep immediately? If I do that, I wind up rolling around for hours, anyway. So to answer your question, I won't go to sleep earlier because that requires days of retraining my body to do something it doesn't want to do.
How does anyone fall asleep in something as hideous as this?
All in all, late sleepers are sick and tired of being asked these questions. We sleep late because we like to and because we can. If I want to wake up in the morning to eat toast and listen to birds fornicate, then I'll do it. Until then, I'm perfectly happy with an afternoon wake up call.