by Emily Schilling
EditorTime is a big deal with me.
For instance, I’m a stickler about following a schedule. Appointments and to-do lists must be documented in my calendar. Though I certainly can roll with the punches, I am thrown for a loop when plans change.
My rigid standards not only affect my waking hours, they filter down to my resting time. I need at least eight hours of sleep. That means getting to bed no later than 9:30 every night. Yes, I have the bedtime of a 12-year-old, but at least I am a pleasant person the next day.
I definitely have an internal alarm clock — 99 out of 100 times I’ll wake up at the same time each morning, turning off the alarm clock before it goes off on its own.
And, invariably, when Daylight-Saving Time returns on March 8, I will continue to follow my set-in-stone sleep/wake-up schedule. But for that long stretch of time — from March to November — I will never feel quite right about when I’m going to bed or waking up. Something will just be “off.”
I know it sounds weird but when Indiana switched to Daylight-Saving Time, I was bummed out for one reason only — my sleep issues! I am programmed for the Eastern Time Zone and, though the time gods may throw me into another time zone, my body prefers its old familiar patterns.
To placate it when I travel, I don’t change the time on my watch. Stubbornly, I keep set to the time to which my body is accustomed. Of course, that means I must always be mentally alert, subtracting or adding hours to what the band on my wrist is telling me.
Yes, my unorthodox behavior has gotten me in trouble. One morning many years ago, while chaperoning the Youth Tour to Washington, D.C., I glanced at the clock radio and noticing the time, bolted out of bed. I was in charge of waking up the students that morning. Groggy after several days of reduced sleep, I got dressed as quickly as I could. I happened to look at the clock again, and then it hit me. I had mistakenly converted Washington time to Indiana time and was on my way to waking the kids an hour earlier than scheduled.
I will — reluctantly — reset my watch on March 8. Eight months of converting time to DST in my head would be too confusing. But, suffice it to say, I’ll be counting the hours until 2 a.m. on Nov. 1 when I can function in the time zone in which I’m most comfortable — and get to bed on time!