Temporally challenged

This is the thing - I don’t know what time it is. OK we all say that from time to time - or at least I do - and when I’ve said it in the past I’m thinking is it 11 o’clock, or 11.45? What I mean right now is, my body does not understand if it’s day, night, evening, morning or next Wednesday afternoon. So this is just because of 2 days of nights (you see - even my language has gone to pot!!) and I’m sure I’ll adjust - at least I sure HOPE I’ll adjust.

I got one of those e-mails in the post today - you know the sort - an inspirational live-one-day-at-a-time sort of thing, all about how each day we wake to a present of the present (I’m making it sound glib - it was good and thanks to the person who sent it). But my reaction was - I don’t know when my day starts. To the general population, it’s early in the morning, when they wake up - but early morning is when I get in from work and go to sleep!

Thursday evening I went into work at 9pm, finishing Friday at 7am and I came home and went to bed, and woke around 1pm, and got up then - was that the start of Friday? Then I pottered around the cottage for a bit, went over to Wisbech in the early evening (and, incidentally, kept falling asleep on the bus!). I got home and dozed in a chair for a bit, watched some internet TV, and then went to bed again at 3am, and woke today (Saturday) at midday. So as far as I’m concerned Thursday, Friday and Saturday all sort of merged together into a continuum of waking and sleeping, with no clear definition of “THIS is where the day starts.

And meals are another thing - during the Thursday night-shift, I had a meal at midnight (not sure if to count that as Thursday’s last meal, or Friday’s first meal), then an apple and a yoghurt at 3am. I ate again Friday around 3pm, and then after I got back home at 10pm. Today, after I got up at midday I was hungry and had a meal that might be lunch, or breakfast, or something else. All this is messing with my head!!!

And now, I don’t have another shift until next Friday starting at 9pm - it is great to think of 7 days off - but do I try to get back to “normal”, or stay with this “odd” sleep and food pattern? As I said when I was on vacation, maybe the best thing is to tune my body-clock to the Mid West time zone, which would mean I’d start work at 3pm:)

As I say it’s early days yet - maybe I’ll get used to it. Or maybe I won’t. Either way, the solution will become clear, somehow:)

What time zone am I in?

It’s been odd these last few days, with getting back from the USA and my new night shift job all mucking around with my perception of time of day. Here are some thoughts and impressions so far:

1) Going to work at 9pm just feels wrong - last night I was standing outside the store waiting for the door to be opened, being told by this slightly inebriated person that the shop was closed - repeatedly being told that - like I really didn’t understand the concept of “closed”.

2) Walking home at 7am is really cool - there are all these shops getting ready to open, people arriving at offices, and I’m going home to bed!

3) “Meal times” are extremely arbitrary. We get a break at midnight, and another at 3am. I knew I’d need one of my 3 meals during that time, so the first day I packed a salad to have at the midnight break, and found myself really hungry again at 3 - they do have vending machines in the store’s canteen, but they were almost empty of anything other than rattlely bag goods and sweets- which is something that went into the comments book!! The second day I took a fruit and yoghurt to have on the second break, and that seemed to work OK.

4) Sleep is a beautiful thing:) I’m grateful I live alone right now, so sleeping from 7am to midday, and then again from 3 to 5 is not a problem to anyone else

5) I’m really catching up on listening to podcasts!! Well, l’ve listened to about 18 hours of arts reviews, science programs, discussions and stuff like that - maybe I could learn a new language or something useful in the time I’m stacking shelves!

I’m feeling kinda disconnected from the world right now - some of that is because I’m awake when others are asleep and asleep when others are up, but more than that physical thing - I’m spending a lot of work time alone in my head. But these are early days - and my next shift is not till next Friday, so I get to have a lot of play-time till I need to wear socks again.