I get some of my best ideas at 5AM.
At 5AM, only the members of my brain trust are present. That would be me, whatever that rattling noise is whenever the air conditioning is blowing, the hum of the fan, and my husband’s sometimes loud and erratic breathing. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately, I’m the only one doing any thinking.
For me, 5AM is my creative refuge from the chaos of mental input that can be the rest of my day.
In March of 2014, I suffered a brain bleed while at work. Two months later in May of 2014, I suffered a second stroke following an angiogram, but this time it was a blockage. I was subsequently diagnosed with a cognitive processing delay. As a result, I forget things. Sometimes immediately. I get distracted easily. I get up to go downstairs, see that there are dishes in the sink, clean the ENTIRE kitchen plus takeout the trash, water the plants, choose new wallpaper, and then go back upstairs without ever retrieving the load of dried laundry I set out to get in the first place. My mind is always racing. There are always a couple handfuls of thoughts grappling for distinction. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself at traffic lights and couldn’t remember where I was going once they turned green because I was off on some mental tangent.
Sometimes, when there are too many things going on, I have trouble sorting them out. Like too many people trying to talk to me at one time. My brain can no longer sort the voices and focus on just one. It hears them all at the same time, and it’s too much.
So at 5AM, when everything that would serve as a distraction is still on pause from the overnight, I can think and let my mind wander with clarity. My characters, my stories, my ideas – they all come to life. I can follow long trains of detailed thought into story lines and logic. Sometimes, I even come up with some majorly fantastic stuff! However, holding on to that fantastic stuff can be like chasing bouncing marbles around in a funnel.
That being said, until some other member of my brain trust volunteers to take minutes, the struggle to get the ideas from here to there will continue to be real.
