Hello Darkness My Old Friend

I’ve come to talk with you again….

Who is the CEO of sunrise and sunset?  I would like to set up an appointment to voice my grievances. Twice a year, like clockwork (pun absolutely intended), society loses its collective mind over the “time change.”  Daylight Saving Time (note: no “s” on saving, because grammar matters).

This is where the clocks play their wee twice-a-year prank on us all— and I, for one, despise it. Every spring and fall, the same thing happens: we “spring forward” or “fall back,” and for the next few weeks we all wander around like we have forgotten how time works.  We all want to be in bed at 6:00 thinking it “feels like midnight.” I like light.  Sun.  

And every time it happens, I find myself asking the same thing: Why are we still doing this? Really?  Must we?

Some say the  history of this nonsense started for the farmers. Well, bless those farmers' little hearts… but I am pretty sure they were up at the crack of somebody’s dawn  no matter what the clock said.  Cows didn’t care if it was six or seven; when they were ready to be milked, they were ready. They were udderly full (see what I did there). Roosters didn't reset their cock a doodle do’s and there was no telling the corn “hey wait another hour ok,” for peak picking time.  Luckily now our phones adjust automatically but my truck clock is often set in last season. 

Others around the WWI era felt if the sun sets later, people turn on lights later — saving coal and electricity.  But by looking at my TXU bill, it doesn’t seem to matter if I lived in darkness for 24 hours– electricity is expensive. Don't LED bulbs  save on electricity? 

 But it’s 2025, folks, and aren’t a lot of houses smart nowadays?  Well not mine as we know by the line of contractors that seemingly are always here….but other houses.

 I thought Texas had a fail safe electrical grid…(enter smirk here).

Let’s start with the obvious: time change is an unnecessary, outdated, completely illogical form of chaos. “Spring forward” sounds cute until we all stumble through the week half-asleep, trying to remember what day it is. I can’t spring out of bed at almost 59, who are we trying to kid. With or without progesterone. 

My sweet Gibson stares at me  like I ruined breakfast. She is so confused. She sits at her bowl  at what was 5:00 a.m. but now it is 6:00 am (or is it 4:00 and now 5:00… or maybe it’s 4:30 and 5:45 in New Newfoundland).. wondering why I’m moving slower than usual.  She does not care one dental bone about daylight savings.

Then we “fall back,” which sounds cozy and everyone is gushing in the sweater weather season — but my body decides to wake me up at 4:00  a.m. like that’s just the way it should be.  I can’t go back to sleep, so I stare at the ceiling, thinking about all my sordid life choices, deliberating  the proverbial argument of “we can put a man on the moon “but not agreeing on a consistent time system. Let’s all be Arizona.

Everyone pretends they’re excited for that “extra hour,” but it’s not worth the trade. Because by 4:45 p.m., the sun’s gone, the world looks like bedtime, and your body thinks we should be in pajamas. Dinner at 5? Sure.  But it feels like midnight.

Even the seniors move their dinner hour to 3:00 in the afternoon so that they can be in bed for 5:00 pm.

 So we light candles, turn on the porch lights, and say things like, “Well, it’s cozy season,” to make ourselves feel better. But deep down, we know we’ve entered the dark side — literally. This is why Starbucks only has pumpkin spice lattes once a year and ends mid November. There are not enough pumpkins or spices to suffice the inevitable madness of this maleficent ritual.

Every year, the experts weigh in on the fact that time change affects our sleep, stress, and health. I can tell you that tidbit of advice without a lab coat- and for free. We all want free health advice these days. 

I feel like everyone looks slightly dazed, cranky, and like they just flew in from another time zone without the tan to justify it. There’s not enough coffee in the world to fix it (and now with coffee selling for 1.3 billion dollars who can afford the luxury). Meetings start late, kids show up to school looking stunned and disheveled, and every clock in the house is lying in a different way.  Car accidents go up, tempers get short, and the only thing saving us is the promise that eventually, our bodies will catch up. We are all one step away from owning a winery. 

We can do surgeries with robots, have groceries delivered by drone,  cars without drivers, but apparently, deciding what time it should be is too much to handle for the government. 

Pick one! Standard, daylight, brunch time, wine time — I don’t care.

I have also noticed how the time change separates folks.  Some people love it — “I adore the extra daylight!” they croon.  Others (the realists among us) are just trying to survive until our bodies stop rebelling. Then there are those perfectly perky types who say, “Oh, I don’t even notice.”

Well, bless their hearts. I notice. We all notice. We’re just polite enough not to say what we’re really thinking. Which really, is something we should all be practicing on a number of subjects these days. 

“ Let's do the time-warp again! It’s just a jump to the left and a step to the right….”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. 

Colleen McCullough is the owner of The Virginia May Bed and Breakfast @ Eagle Mountain Lake.  You can follow the BnB  on Instagram and Facebook  @thevirginiamay