Secret Familial Habits Uncovered

It's amazing how you notice certain traits among family members that even span generations. I don't mean physical traits like facial similarities or height or how fast you get your waistline back after you give birth. I mean habits, patterns of behavior so much a part of your every day that once you notice it in someone else, it's almost as if a light goes on and WHAM! A big-deal revelation. Like some ancient secret were uncovered, or a sysadmin password hacked, or Mcgyver's first name finally figured out. (It's Angus, dummy.)

One familial habit I've discovered is what I call Self-Inflicted Sleep Deprivation.

For years, even before I moved to the States, I've been staying up every night until about 12 or 1 in the morning. This despite my having to wake up at 5 a.m. in order to be at work by 6:30. So yes, I'm accustomed to getting through the work week on only 4 or 5 hours of sleep every night, and lately, even 3. Though that didn't work out too well; on the third day of doing that, I got headaches, felt light-headed all day, and was nodding off in mid-code.

Still, no matter how many times I tell myself that I'm going to be in bed by 10:30, I continue to stay too long on my laptop working on something. I invariably keep pushing my deadline back, half an hour at a time until, I'm disappointed to see on my Windows systray, it's 12:00 again. (Sometimes I even make a long-distance phone call to Manila, use up a $5 phone card, and punish myself even more.)

So, casually aware that I am lowering my life expectancy, imagine my surprise when I realized I had not one, not two, but three close relatives, spanning two generations in two continents, who apparently possess the very same "Deprive self of sleep and life will be more fun!" gene.

The first is my Auntie Fidi from Oklahoma. I visited her and her son, my cousin Josh, in October, after not having seen them in ten years. But I didn't even realize she was on a crazy sleep schedule until my second visit a month later, when Josh mentioned she'd stay up until 2 in the morning watching TV. WHAM! No wonder I'd see her curled up on the recliner, wrapped in a blanket fast asleep!

What a coincidence, I thought. She's a bit like me!

The second culprit: my cousin Joey from New Jersey. I flew over there to see him and his family for Veterans Day weekend in November. Guess what I noticed on my first night, when I was about to take my shower at 11 p.m.? Everyone else had gone to bed, but he was up watching TV. He does that every night, he said. Just stay up and watch TV.

DING-DING-DING!

WHAM!

Last December, I visited the Philippines for the first time since I moved to Arizona five years ago. My brother Mark is now a web designer. He works flexible hours. Most times, he gets to the office at 9 a.m. and works until 6. When he gets home, he has dinner, gets on the internet, and plays this multiplayer online role-playing game called World of Warcraft. Guess what time he goes to bed? Oh, not too late... about 2 in the morning.

WHAM!

Amazing. This absolutely blows my mind.

I wonder how many more clan members are out there, bodies on crazy internal clocks, brains running on caffeine (or worse, blood and oxygen), risking life and limb while driving through the streets, reputation with clients hanging in the balance as we work on reduced cerebral capacity.

I don't know a lot of people who can function consistently on 4 or 5 hours of sleep every night. Actually, I know just one other -- my friend Mike from Oklahoma. But I think he's spent too much time with Auntie Fidi and them over there.

Now I'm not proud of this unhealthy practice, and I know I should be taking better care of myself. But after living alone for so long, one thing's for certain -- this sure has made me feel like part of a family again.

Oh my, look at the time.