The view from the other side

I'm five weeks into this new hospice gig that I'm doing, and although I'm still on orientation, I am here to report that I'm pretty sure I really love it. I almost admit that hesitantly, because I'm doing things that I always swore I'd hate, things I scoffed at, things I mocked and derided others for doing. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but you get the picture. Those things include: sleeping during the night, waking up early each morning, working five days a week, having to do errands and shopping on the weekends...I could go on. Because to be honest, I LOVED night shift. I loved only working three days a week, and I was giddy over being to go shopping or do errands in the middle of the week. The middle of the night, even. I could avoid traffic and most of all, CROWDS. I did the nocturnal thing really well, and the few early mornings I've been forced to contend with have left me grumbly, crabby, and generally miserable. To be fair, I probably induced the same feelings in those unfortunate enough to be around me in the early mornings.

Well, nothing drastic changed...I'm still not a morning person, and given my druthers (what the heck are druthers, and why is someone giving them to me? Like a present?) I'd be staying up late and sleeping in till past noon. Oh well. But I've adjusted to this new schedule, in part because I'm a creature of habit...I ADORE habit. And routine. It's just so comforting. So the regularity of this new schedule fits me well. And I guess I'll give Matt a little credit...since I've moved in with him, my old night schedule got progressively more annoying and inconvenient. I was only home with him a few evenings a week for dinner, and those nights weren't the same week to week, and it was frustrating. Now I get to be home every night, and every weekend, and it turns out that five-day-a-week things isn't so bad when the shifts are only eight hours long, leaving me with plenty of time after work to walk the dogs, cook an Indian feast, plant some vegetables, whatever strikes my fancy. I'm not advocating either schedule/lifestyle over another, I'm just saying you gotta find what works for you at the right time for you.

At this point, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I changed jobs simply due to shift and schedule concerns, and while that is a huge piece of my overall contentedness, the nursing aspect of what I'm now doing versus what I was doing is the main thing. But that's a big topic for another post, and right now it's easier to write about and be silly about simple things like sleep schedules.

I'm sort of concerned that I need to rename the blog, or start a new one...since I'm no longer literally "knitting in the dark." Now it's more like "driving during the day" but that isn't too catchy...I'll have to ponder that.