The Difference between Morning Me and Evening Me
I am a morning person, and as a morning person, I begin most days excited about the day ahead and what I might be able to accomplish in it. Morning me writes blog posts in my head while I drive to work. Morning me thinks about how I will totally have time to finish that craft project when I get home from work. Morning me is also aware of all the unfinished tasks on my to do list and totally believes that there is enough time in the day to tackle them after work.
Of course morning me is the one who starts the work day, pouring all sorts of energy into emails, tasks and projects. Morning me is organized and effective and tremendously good at her job. Sometimes morning me lasts into the afternoon, but other times she starts to leave me after lunch as my eyes start to feel heavy and my willingness to start new things starts to wane.
Afternoon me is a mix. If the fatigue doesn’t strike, afternoon me is able to keep working hard until closing time, especially if I get into a project that doesn’t take too much mental power, but still feels interesting. By the time I get off work, I sometimes still feel hopeful about the remaining hours of my day, though during these short days when the sun is already setting as I drive home, it is harder to picture much else happening that day.
Afternoon me has chores to do though, so she is productive because she has to be. Chickens and geese need to be put away for the night. Supper needs to be made. Clothes set out for the next day. Eventually it is time to sit down and eat and I am faced with evening me. Evening me is always tired. Morning me may have decided that after supper I would either tackle my to do list or work on creative pursuits, but evening me very rarely complies with this prearranged schedule. Evening me likes tv shows, and social media scrolling, and mindless iPad games. Evening me is prone to putting off the dishes, even though this will mean an even larger pile for her tomorrow.
I have found some work arounds. Sometimes I can convince evening me to do something creative with her hands if I pair it with a desired activity, like watching tv. And sometimes I am able to put enough intention behind a small easily achievable goal that I can follow through, like the goal of writing at least one paragraph before picking up a book once I go to bed, which I do achieve most nights now. It is unlikely that evening me is going to change drastically, at least not while I am investing 40 hours a week towards the interests of the organization I work for. One important piece of achieving peace with that is recognizing that my time at work is not wasted. I know that my contributions are valued, and that the work we are doing is important. I also am building skills, knowledge and resilience that will carry into other areas of my life as well. It’s sometimes easy to forget those things and sigh about the things that I’m not achieving right now, and so I am reminding myself to be conscious of the positives (which of course also include a steady paycheck). But, I do have bigger picture, longer term goals that I am unwilling to completely set aside during this time, and I want to keep making progress towards those.
Reconciling these competing energies can be difficult, but not impossible. I have successfully reduced my screen time during the week by using my morning energies and intention to set limits on my devices to redirect some of those evening urges. I’ve also tried to help evening me be more productive by using my phone to set repetitive “tasks,” like setting a workout schedule in my Apple Fitness app. This works as long as I don’t set the expectations too high. It’s all about finding that balance between my goals and intentions and the reality of what my body and brain feel like at the end of a day. I’m not there yet, but I’m making progress.
The energetic, hopeful, joyful me that I am in the morning is the one I identify most strongly with. She runs deeper than morning and night. She’s the one that will come out when I am able to finally pull myself together and put sketches or words to paper no matter what time of day. In fact, I feel her now while I write this blog post in the late afternoon. She comes out when I take a break and go for a walk and let myself soak in the beauty around me. She resides not just in the bustle at the beginning of the day, but in the moments of quiet at the end of it when I put down the screen or turn off the podcast. She does require energy though, a resource that is not always in abundant supply. This is a fact that evening me knows quite well. She is the one that reminds me to rest both my mind and body, and though she can be overzealous at times, it would be unwise to ignore her completely. Evening me is not the opposite of morning me, just the shadow.
John and I recently took a trip, just the two of us, to an off-grid cabin in Nova Scotia. It was a wonderful 5 days devoted to relaxation and creativity. In between the few tasks we had like feeding the fire and preparing small meals, I spent hours at a time sketching, something I’ve had very little energy for lately. I came back with the intention of replacing some of my “just for fun” iPad time with art. And while I have been picking up the sketching more than I had been, the reality of my life right now make it extremely hard to follow through. After two weeks back (two weeks that have been even more stressful than usual at work), I am remembering what I had realized when I originally started this blog post. Balance is hard, and I need to take small steps toward building creative habits into my day.
