Night Shift

I think the last time I worked a straight night shift was 2013. Since 2013, I have been on the day shift and for the past 10 months on evenings. With daylight saving times, a full moon, change in the month, and getting used to sleeping during the day, life feels a little confusing. I got up yesterday at 10pm. I kept having to remind myself what day of the week it was. I bummed around the house, did a little cleaning, played some video games, and watched a movie. At 8am, I was out the door, did my grocery shopping, Christmas shopping, hit the Goodwill with donations, hit the bank to cash in some excess coins, and got some gas for the coming week. It dawned on me that 8am was such a big deal for getting up previously. Why such a big difference?

The night shift makes me happy. I can't explain why. I like sleeping through most of the day. I enjoy the quiet of the night. My mornings are productive, and I go to bed at 11am. I like not having traffic on either side of my commute. I am oddly energized by this schedule. Are some people just hardwired for nights? I really think I am. Honestly, I was a bit concerned that straight nights would be hard. Since starting my new job, I have been more productive at home than I have been all year! I can't help but think that I am on my ultimate schedule. 

When I was discharged from my first inpatient treatment, my aftercare plans provided by my counselor suggested that I not work nights, not work 12-hour shifts, go to sober living, attend aftercare, and sign up for the monitoring program (as I was obligated by law to do so). Well.....I attended 2 sessions of aftercare and got into a verbal altercation with another group member. I told the counselor it was her or me. They weren't going to ask her to leave, so I did. All those other things.....I did not do a single one. I continued to work overnights. I continued to work 12-24 hour days. I went home and managed to sneak by without reporting myself to the Board of Nursing. I stayed sober for 60 days.

I started working straight nights in 2009. Before that, I worked evenings, then days, then back to evenings and then nights. I tried a Monday-Friday office job and was laid off in mid-2009. When I was offered the transplant position, I trained on days for a month or two and then went to nights. I had managed over the years to have friends who worked similar schedules and never had a significant problem connecting with other people. We night people are a strange lot....we are also a lot of fun, in my humble opinion. I was so happy to get back to nights. In terms of my drinking, the problem is that working 12-hour shifts made it hard for my drinking. I simply didn't have enough time to get home, get drunk, and then recover before needing to go back in. The kicker for me was the 24-hour shift that I worked once a week. It became impossible for me not to drink for 24 hours. My withdrawals were too bad. That was the downward spiral that ultimately landed me in detox and treatment. 

After I finally got some sober time under my belt, I was happy working nights. I had a great co-worker, too, which made the nights go by quickly. I did a sober "no-no" by playing around a lot with my sleep schedule on my time off. I would do a little sleep deprivation to get back onto a "normal" schedule so I could do things on my time off. I have generally happy memories of being with my family a lot and having ample time for friends. When I think of 2012, I was the most satisfied in my sober life during that year. Oddly, working nights as part of happiness. Somehow, my job doesn't feel like it gets in the way of the family and social things I like to do. 

Part of my reason to switch to nights had nothing to do with liking the schedule. I was more fixated on making school work. I don't get a lot of notice of scheduling changes, and now I am in clinical rotations. All the class times and clinicals seem to plop right in the middle of either day or evening shift. While I had a lot of flexibility with my schedule, it just seemed like too much to change every other week to meet my own needs. Nights just seemed like the best option to keep work outside of the schooling needs. A couple of weeks in, I am happy as a clam. The job itself is not overly stressful. There is just enough steadiness, so I can be active. The patients are complex. Let me tell you, it feels good to be nurse-y again. G-tubes, vents, trachs, suction, dressing changes, medication administration, and catheters....there is something that makes me feel proud about being competent to provide this kind of care. The added bonus is that clinical rotations are generally online or through simulation right now. I can get my hands-on skills through the job for the time being. 

I think back over the past seven years about the struggles to be a day shift person. I don't know why I cannot get out of bed at 7:30am. Yet, I am ready to hit the door running at 8am as long as I have been up all night. I knew when I left counseling that I would go to a later shift. Evenings were OK for a while. Nights are feeling much better. I work 10-hour shifts now, which I also like better. Fewer days, still enough hours. As long as I am already there, no problem putting in a couple of extra hours. I don't work more than 2 days in a row, and my weekend off is a 4 day weekend. I am on an eternal grid, so I know my schedule until the end of time. Am I working on July 22nd, 2023? I could actually figure that out and tell you. Consistency goes a long way for me,

Each year of sobriety has brought happiness, challenges, disappointments, achievement, support, new friends, tough times, and times of celebration. I have been chasing the overall satisfaction of 2012. That year was great for work, great for social needs, great for motivation to do something new, challenging to keep sobriety going, and so much time with my family. Of course, there were challenges in that year; however, the future's excitement was well and alive. I had things I was looking forward to. I was also learning a new way to live. I was surprised and delighted when I could actually be sober and like it. Let me tell you, I spend an extra 3 years intoxicated because the fear of being sober was so terrifying. Today I wonder how I managed to live like that for so long.

At the beginning of 2020, I felt that things were going to change for the better. I was happy and sad to leave counseling. I knew that was for the benefit of my sobriety and sanity. I took a giant leap and started school again. I settled into a job which, for many months, was incredible. Despite COVID, quarantines, and a whole lot of unknown, 2020 is turning out to be an OK year for me, all things considered. I valued the time more than ever with my family when we could be together. I ended up working outside of the home, which is very important for me. Had I been working from home, I would not do well. I had a lot of socialization with my work family and clients. I needed these things to survive in 2020. 

2020 has been a year of significant changes. I have a hard time with change; however, I experience a really positive change every once and a while. While I did not like leaving my most recent work family, I know I did the right thing. I followed my mom's advice to really look into jobs and feel good about the position I was taking and not just jump at the first offer. It was a significant change for me not to do that!! I am most happily surprised that the night shift is working out very well for my needs right now. I am working just the right amount of hours to still make school work. I am also feeling productive again. I missed this part of myself, and it's been a bay for a long time. I miss running around and getting things done. I miss not being on top of my home cleaning. I miss not working on the painting around the home. I lost the motivation for all of that. I let things slide more than I would be proud of if you walked into my house. I am finally digging out and feeling organized again. I guess not all change is bad, after all. 

More to come!
Julie