To go to bed, or to not go to bed

I have a really bad habit when Ryan's out of town. I stay up way too late.

I don't know why I do it. When Ryan's home, he usually goes to bed before me (because he gets up at 5) and then I usually come up to bed around 10:30-11 p.m. Sometimes earlier. Sometimes he goes to bed later, and so we both turn in at the same time.

But when he's away, I can't seem to convince myself to go to bed. I can always convince myself to watch just a little more TV. Or do one more thing. Or, when I do finally manage to convince myself that I have to go to bed, I'll read just a few more pages.

So my usual weeknight bedtime just gets later and later and later. Until I realize that by the time I'm turning my light off, it's well after midnight. And unless I get to sleep in (which is just a dream when you have kids), going to bed after midnight is not enough hours of sleep for me.

As I said yesterday, luckily he doesn't go away often. And he rarely ever travels for work (I think I can count on one hand the number of times he's travelled for work since we've had kids. Actually, I think I can count using just a finger or two.) So, when he does go away, it tends to be on a weekend -- a guys weekend, or something like that.

And that's ok. A late Friday night, all day with the kids, a late Saturday night and then on Sunday he's home again.

But since this trip was unexpected and it's during the week -- here it is Thursday and I'm finding myself pretty damn tired. And it's my own fault. I haven't been to bed before midnight all week -- yet I'm still up just after 6. It's stupid really, and the only person I have to blame is myself. If I would just go to bed when I'm tired instead of staying up for an extra hour or two just because he's not home, I wouldn't be so tired.

But the crazy thing is, no matter how tired I may complain I am right now -- I'll still end up staying up past midnight tonight. Why is that?