Alarm Clock Blues

Sometime I feel like I am living life backward. At least in regards to alarm clocks.

My spouse, suffering from depression, bi-polar, and anxiety claims to be at best and more productive in the morning. At night, as early as after work, done, and just needs to sit and not think as it is TV watching from 5:30 p.m. on.

In the morning though, the alarm rings extra loud, a special feature one can purchase, to wake us up, at 4:21 a.m. I think the original thought was that one could hit the snooze button once and end up with a 4:30 a.m. wake up time.

The problem is that the alarm clock is across the room. And it is REALLY loud. So it goes off and I jump out of bed to slap the snooze. I am wide awake, and don't see a point to laying down to fall back to sleep only to be jolted awake 8 minutes later by a blast of unpleasantness. But spouse sleeps right through it. So I shower and as I am drying off I hear the alarm go off again, must be 4:38 or so. Today it beeped for 10 minutes before I went in and slapped the snooze button (and I don't use the word "slapped" lightly). Spouse still sound asleep. Eight minutes later ... beep, beep, beep or should I say BEEP, BEEP, BEEP and still no one is rising. So I go in and slap the snooze and start talking which then rises the sleepy spouse and I can turn it off. It is dark outside still, now just after 6:00 a.m. But I've had an hour and 40 minutes of productivity.

Sometimes I like getting up early, it is peaceful up until the point that the alarm starts going off again. Eight minutes of peace anyway. So, I live my life backwards, it is one of those things that you compromise on as you share your life with  a loved one who just happens to live with mental illness.