4:30 AM

I’m 44 and I wake up at 4:30 am. I can’t sleep. I toss and turn. My wife is sleeping, as is the dog on our bed. The children are silent in their small beds. All is quiet. This is when old memories come to mind. I am reminded of when I was in seventh and eigth grade, when I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning. I’d put on a sweatshirt, stretch in the cold dark, get on a bike and ride. I’d go up the hill and then down towards the cow pastures, ride along the Amish country of Olievenhein, then back up the steep hill of Village Park. Five mile bide ride, every morning. Sometimes, I’d jump the fence of the community pool near by. It was unheated. I’d jump in, the cold would paralize, but I would swim and that would get me warm. It started with two laps, then four, then eight. It wasn’t much but I would do it to get myself into a better shape, transforming from a pudgy boy, into a little warrior.

I lived in the family room, on a futon. I had a TV in that room, separated from the living room by a wall of book shelves. It was like my own little apartment. Waking up to an alarm clock at four am while the family slept above. Doing push ups and sit ups, hundreds of them while the family slept. Exercising like a mad man.

I’d get home from the bike ride, or a run, or a swim, shower for 10 seconds in the cold water, eat a breakfast and then head out to school, at 6:45. The school libraries used to Open that early back then. I’d be there alone with the librarian, finishing my homework with a fresh mind before the class began.

I didn’t know it then, but this was the perfect routine for an ADHD mind. I don’t know why I did it, I just did it. It made me go from the last place finisher, to a mid-pack runner. From a kid who got beat up, to a monster on the mat.

But puberty hit, and suddenly, it became a lot more difficult to wake up. It became difficult to fall asleep. I had my own room, up there with all the rest after my grandmother moved to a facility. I got a computer, in my own room. It was high school now, and I would be up all night, in chats with people across the world. I’d be up, till 4:30 am, sometimes innocent, sometimes not.