Nyctophilia-

Nyctophilia – love of darkness or night.

I come alive in the nighttime!  This has caused untold issues for me, the main one being that getting up in the morning for me is pure torture.  My ideal schedule would have me getting up around noon and going to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning.  Of course, I am in accounting and that takes place from 8-5 and forces me to adhere to a schedule that I detest.  It is a struggle everyday for me to get up and arrive on time.

My poor mother used to have to get me up in the mornings for school.  Most of our fights happened in the morning because I was very cranky and pissed off at being up so early.  This later manifested into me failing English class both my Junior and Senior year due to the fact that I had it first period and it was impossible for me to get there on time.  It also didn’t help that I absolutely loathed my English teacher for ruining my favorite class by being a terrible teacher.  Mr. Faulkner, I don’t miss you!

There is nothing I adore more than a late dinner, drinks and a night on the town which seems to happen less and less as I get older.  But my love of darkness extends into other parts of my life as well.  I love a good, dark book.  A friend of mine that I used to recommend books to once asked me why I always recommended depressing books to her.  I was baffled, I did not think that they were depressing.  I love to read about broken people, the stranger the better.  Gillian Flynn, Caroline Kepnes, Steven King, Bret Easton Ellis, I could list them for days.  Horror, tragedy, suspense, fantasy, I love it all!  Messed up families, situations, death, destruction, despair, I eat it up!

This has filtered into my choices of music, TV and movies as well. I know every word of Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine, that was the soundtrack of my youth.  I still love that kind of music, everything from Depeche Mode, Marilyn Manson, Tool, The Weeknd.   American Horror Story, Sharp Objects, Patrick Melrose, Six Feet Under are just a few of the shows I adore.  Even my taste in movies has been affected.  Requiem for a Dream, Magnolia, Fight Club, Black Swan, American History X and the list goes on and on.

I have often wondered if this is normal or am I just a really messed-up individual?  I think that if the darker stuff was all that I embraced it would not be normal, but I do normal things as well.  I would consider myself a well-rounded individual with a taste for the macabre.  I think that sometimes when you read or watch or hear someone else’s struggle, it makes your own a little bit more manageable.  I will never be a bright and shiny person but that’s ok.

So that is why I chose the title for this blog, a lyric that I love and understand, “The night is calling, and it whispers to me softly come and play.” I always hear the whisper and sometimes I can’t resist playing.