Hello!

For reasons that include life, I have been without my own laptop for almost six months, and my main access to the interwebs has been through mobile devices. That greatly discouraged me from posting anything on here, and I also used the excuse of working full-time to deter me from really writing anything at all. Then, my site went down, got fixed, went down again, then got prettied up and fixed again.

(Also, for other reasons I may discuss later, I believe I have been experiencing a mild depression due to chemical imbalance, caused by a variety of factors. )

But now I have a pretty site (except for some copyediting, maybe), and a working laptop (which Charles helped me set up). We finished setting up the laptop late last night, after I got home from work. I went to bed feeling super excited to write with an actual keyboard and a screen in front of me, and not have angry thumbs from typing on my phone so much.

Then...

...I wake up this morning feeling like I had run a half-marathon in my sleep (no, I don't actually know what that feels like - just guessing). I stay in bed until a little bit past 10 o'clock, feeling guilty about being in bed, even though it's my Saturday. I feel too tired to even think about writing until I have a very strong cup of of PG Tips, then I begin to reflect on why I felt guilty.

Core reason: somehow, waking up and getting up early feels more righteous (I know, total [sorry, Mom] bullshit) than sleeping late. Why, though?

At first I want to blame Christian fundamentalism. I heard all my life, in one way or another, until I graduated college, that mornings were the most appropriate time for “quiet time”. (At one point, I was even told it was a sin if I hit the snooze button.)

There is this general common perception that anyone who doesn’t wake up early is somehow lazy. Naturally, I wonder how that came to be the perception. I surmise that it has to do with work that needs to be completed while it’s daylight. I imagine that before electricity was used, getting up with the sun ensured that there was enough light to complete a day’s work. We have electricity now, so getting up early isn’t as necessary; however, sleeping in is still perceived as laziness, more often than not.

I conclude that what's behind my guilty feeling is a combination of cultural perception and Christian fundamentalism, but that does not make the feeling go away. Sigh. I decide to get up and bake some hash browns, even though it's past noon at this point.

I know I am not alone in this feeling of guilt, so tell me what you think. Do you feel guilty about not waking up before a certain point? Why?