Hey Nonny

Occasionally my husband Jeff has to work nights at the hospital.  He’s in the middle of one of these nightfloat shifts right now and it’s the opposite of awesome.  These shifts usually last for a couple of weeks and by the end of it, we have not fared well.

Usually the first night isn’t so bad.  I’ll wave goodbye to Jeff just before putting the kids to bed.  Then I’ll pop in a movie that I know he would hate as sort of an in-your-face to nightfloat.  (“Suck it, nightfloat!  Now I can finally see Where the Heart Is sans guilt!”)  After two hours of Ashley Judd, I’ll catch up on my current events by watching Letterman’s monologue for the first time in six months and then decide to turn in for the night.  I’ll double lock all the doors (not my usual custom) and check under the bed and in the closets for mashers before finally turning off my bedroom light at the last possible moment.

I’ll spend the next day tiptoeing around the house so as not to wake Jeff.  He’ll wake up groggy around 4pm, quickly shower, grab a Hot Pocket and we’ll say goodbye again.  This is where things turn ugly.  Having already watched the Ashley Judd movie that’s been in my Netflix cue for a year, I am left to surf aimlessly for something to keep me company while I fold laundry.  I choose a murder mystery and two hours later realize that was a stupid idea.  It is now midnight, but I can’t possibly sleep, so I watch a few reruns of Frazier.  Two hours later, I figure I’ll just check my email “real quick” and end up on Facebook where I learn what society, families, friends, and others think that people do and also what those people actually do.  It’s very confusing, so I head to my room with a migraine where I check under the bed and in the closets for mashers before finally turning off my bedroom light at the last possible moment.

Around day three, the hallucinations begin.  Have I told you about my bedtime hallucinations?  Apparently they can occur in people who have had childhood trauma and in times of great stress.  Other than the summer vacation I spent driving around the desert looking for graves with my family, my childhood was relatively trauma-free.  So I’m assuming my hallucinations are brought on by stress.

Sometimes I’ll wake up and think the ceiling is slowly caving in on me and other times I’ll see a man standing above my bed watching me sleep peacefully.  I’ve seen spiders crawling all over the walls and bookcases falling.  It’s a little unsettling.  Day three is also when I start building a Jeff out of pillows to try and trick my mind into believing there’s someone sleeping next to me.  Unfortunately, night time me is never as stupid as I’m hoping she’ll be.  Right about the time I’m finally drifting off to sleep, the train comes by.  Oh, did I mention there’s a train in my backyard?  That’s not an exaggeration.  There’s a train in my backyard.  I could throw a rock from my bedroom window and hit the passing train, if I wanted to (which I do at 3am on a weeknight).

During the day I find it hard to find the motivation to take all of my kids to the grocery store, so my son ends up eating whatever I can find in the pantry to pack for his lunch.  (“Hardboiled eggs and garlic croutons, again?!”)  The bags around my eyes become more and more visible and my kids keep asking if there’s a baby in my tummy.  (Nope.  It’s just the extra pizza Combos I’m packin’ these days.)  My friends begin sending out invitations for my intervention (I think you can find a tutorial for them on Pinterest) and I continue to spend my nights watching Ashley Judd movies because she’s the only one who makes sense in my world gone mad.

By the end of two weeks, I am in full-fledged zombie mode.  It’s not pretty.

Once we both get the rest we need and get back on our schedule, I have time to reflect on our experience and play The Glad Game.  For example, I can be glad that this is the last time Jeff will ever have to work a nightfloat shift.  I can be glad that he doesn’t have a job where he travels a lot because clearly I don’t sleep well alone.  I can also be glad that my “before” picture for my summer beach body will be sufficiently grotesque.

But until then, I’ll continue to check under the bed and in the closets for mashers before turning off the bedroom lights at the last possible moment.