Sleep? Yeah, I do that sometimes.

When I was 12 years old, I started sneaking out of my house at night. Not at 9 or 10, to go over to a friend's house, but around 2 or 3 am. What I did during those starlit adventures is the stuff of another blog. Not just another post, but an entirely new blog, not normally dedicated to my spiritual self.

For the last 17 years, I haven't managed what people would call a "normal" sleep schedule. At least not for more than a couple months at a time.

One week, I'll be up until 8am, and sleep until 4pm. The next week, I'll be in bed by 9m, and fresh by 7am. It usually travels in phases, and these phases usually last 3-4 weeks at a stretch.

The point of all of this is that while some may see this as a detriment, I have now seen and experienced things that "normal" never get to see.

Standing outside at 3:00am on a crisp January morning, the wind brisk as it nips your cheeks. The fog that rolls in with the breeze, soothing and muting the sounds of the suburban environment, making houses and cars appear as nothing more than ghosts of their former selves. Looking up at the branches of trees, where the moisture from the fog has collected in a beautiful crystalline lattice, sparkling in the light of the stars. The stars themselves, fading in and out of visibility as thicker patches of the thin cloud cover try to obscure the majesty of the heavens.

Or a pre-dawn morning in late July, when the sky is just beginning to turn the faintest shade of pink, splashed across the eastern horizon. The surrounding sky starts as that odd mix of light blue and steel gray, but as you crane your neck and start to move your vision to the west, it darkens and into the deepest shade of blue the human eye can make out, where the stars struggle mightily against the coming sun. The sound of crickets and cicadas, of birds beginning to sing, and yet it's still quiet enough that you imagine that if you knelt down, just a little bit, you could hear the worms and insects toiling away beneath the bright green grass, covered with dew.

An August afternoon in the Boundary Waters, where the song of the mosquitoes tries to lull you in for a nap. The bright sun, streaking through the few clouds brave enough to dare the warmth, to shimmer across the mirror-like stillness of the small lake that you're camped next to. The sound of an elusive lake trout breaking the surface for a bug, small ripples sliding closer. The fresh air, resounding with the minuscule and infinite sounds of a living, breathing forest, reminding you just how small you really are in the universe.

Some people claim my inability to remain "normal" is something that needs to be fixed. I say that you've missed out on some of Nature's most awe-inspiring moments by always sleeping at night.