Since the year began, doing my extra program position time, I have been pretty successful in legitimately getting out of doing my stupid once every four week Monday night shift. I must say that six months of avoiding such a thing has been a pretty good stint. However, I'm aware that situations or people can't accommodate 100% of the time, and fate has to bitchslap me the odd time back into the reality of dealing with them. Of course it would have to happen tonight just because it's less than ideal. I'm pressed into doing it when it's only ten days away from summer solstice, when there is enough bright late evening daylight (even when cloudy like now), and a super early sunrise to screw up my systems really good.
I worked from noon until 3:00 PM today, and threw myself into bed at around 5:00 this afternoon. Amazingly, I did get some sleep, but not nearly enough to cope with tonight. The fates conspired to send some friggin' quasi-mongoloid child to do some loud and random play-shrieking in the school playground close to my building just to alarm and awake me at those exact points that make me feel both disoriented and physically unrested at their respective maxima.
I couldn't return to sleep if I wanted to, at least not in my bed. I felt too hot. The spot where I laid was like a furnace. I noticed Ella, even while she slept, instinctively somnambulated to the furthest corner of the bed to avoid my intense thermal chalk-outline. I finally dared myself to look and see what the actual time was. It was 8:10 PM.
I thought my next best move would be to combat the bodily stiffness I was already feeling, and I was starting to feel hungry. I ate some steak, bean salad, and greens, and had fruit with whipped cream for dessert.
It strikes me now, the major reason that I think I hate night shifts so much: I have never found the mental trick, or special magic override button, to make my body think that forced wakefulness is somehow enjoyable, when all it wants to do sense aches and pains in my joints and muscles, and curl up into a fetal position. I hate it when I can't conquer my own body. No mental tricks are happening because my mind is suffering as well, and it's doing every desperate measure to switch over to self-preservation mode, to ignore all the other secondary systems, and trying to avoid experiencing the physical havoc that the rest of my body senses. I hate watching my wits erode, and being crippled by foggy-headedness and absent-mindedness. These are some of the physiological symptoms of shock. Night shifts are bad and unnerving for me because my body is sincerely and literally undergoing a such a thing. I hate them because there is no such thing as possibly being able to work at my best when I'm stranded there this way.
I see it's nearly 10:00 PM, and I work in another hour. Writing about this was no help for me; all I can do is try to make things go over as smooth as possible. If I still have any marbles left, I'll have to finish this when I wind down next morning.
It's 11:30 AM next morning. I only slept two hours. I was awoken again by a combination of an abnormally vicious hunger and stray noise from outside (even with earplugs in). One more thing to generally mention as a reason as to why I ultimately dislike night shifts: I abhor, and won't tolerate any longer, anything that makes me less of a person than I am, or which steers me away from the kind of person I want to be. I put some kind of effort into improving my fitness by running and strengthening myself everyday; then when after I'm pressed into doing a night shift my body feels too weak to stand after being deprived of any moment I need to recover, leading to sometimes days of clumsiness and restlessness. It violates the standard I set for myself to be better physically. Prior to yesterday, I was balancing and solving complex equations, and reading and texting in other languages. Today, I'm trapped in physically feeling awake, but mentally incapable of even doing simple arithmetic; not remembering where I just placed something, or even what to call something in plain English. This violates the standard I set for myself to become a better person mentally. I was calm and at peace the day before yesterday, confident enough to face adverse and uncomfortable conditions resiliently. Now, I'm irritable enough to stand on the throat of anyone who doesn't let me have any peace. A night shift brings me closer to violating a standard I set for myself for being composed emotionally and having a character integrity that works for the better.
I hate night shifts because they weaken me; when I do one, I am then forced to reflect and admit to myself that I'm still stupid enough to allow all this to happen to me.
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