It bothers me that the little sleep I get is dominated by dreams of work. Being on night shift, my sleep schedule is completely inverted, and I’m lucky if I can get 5 hours of solid sleep a day. When i start to come out of sleep, if my dreams aren’t involved with work, they soon become involved with work as I remember that it’s daytime and I have to sleep to prepare for my shift tonight. It’s like my life has completely stopped and exists solely for the service of my job. That’s an empty feeling.
I have two more nights this week; Saturday morning’s shift will be the 12-hour bitch that I dread. Once that’s over, 3 nights off, and then another two four-night weeks before I rotate out to 3 weeks of swing shifts. If you’re looking for the end, you won’t find it — the wheel keeps rolling. Best I can do is pretend I still have hope and that relief is around the curve.