The good...
I prefer to observe the crazy 8-1630'ers in their cars, frantically making phone calls, guzzling coffee, applying mascara, etc... and chuckle maniacally at them all as they whiz past me (never mind that I'm doing 45 in a 60---what?! I don't have anywhere to be!) And as you deal with your day jobs I am tucked peacefully into my cozy bed where I will stay until I wake up, because I don't use an alarm clock HA-HA!!!!
The bad...
But it's unfortunate on nights that I do not work. I am awake at 0100 knowing that I have to get up in five and a half hours to put four children on the bus and feed the other two breakfast. And of course I won't get a nap before I punch my N+ ticket that night, because who can nap when they slept the previous night?
I originally thought that working nights would be the ticket for those of us with children. They sleep, we work. They go to school, we sleep. In all honesty it still sounds good in theory. But it's not a good thing.
I'm wore out, folks. I'm overwhelmed at times. No longer do my precious children sleep through every noise that I can create with a vacuum in the middle of the night, and they have yet to get themselves ready and on the bus without parental assistance.
I try...
On the Sleepy Tap in this house we have SleepyTime Extra tea (with valerian), and Nyquil, and have tried tylenol PM. But there is only so much medicating one can do before feeling like a junkie for sleep. So we switch to alternatives. Angry birds is good for falling asleep. Crocheting works. Television doesn't cut it simply for the fact that you're entertaining yourself. Books don't work because it's too easy to become involved. So those of us who label ourselves N+ end up not sleeping.
Well I could always switch!
But I do not like people. Rather, I do not like people who get in the way of me doing my job. I prefer finding out what I need to know, searching for problems and solving them on my own, documenting all of it and going home. Your clicky shoes and smiley meetings and cheerleading for the team do not interest me in the least. N+ are a breed of their own. We are blunt, we are hard-working, we are vampires?
The ugly truth I am beginning to realize...
I will have to change. I love my breed, my people, my co-N+...but I am not healthy in this capacity. I already feel old, most likely due to the six sleeping
I cannot be the midnight toker...
And thus, higher-HIGHER education. Which will equal more sleepless nights and wholly stressful days, but with the benefit of knowing that eventually I can wear my own clicky shoes and call the shots. There will be no more dinners that end with me leaving the house for the night. I will hopefully not find myself awake at 0100 in front of my blogger screen waiting for the SleepyTime Extra to kick in.
To thine own self be true...
If the future brings me rounds at a facility, I shall visit my people. I am awful fond of the N+ crews everywhere I have worked and I couldn't imagine not having their biting sarcasm in my life in some way. I will dance to Saturday Night Fever songs with the sleep-deprived N+ folk who babble incoherently at 0430 about the things that really matter...like alligator hats, glove placement as a housekeeping check, IV pole dancing, and chair-chart cart choo-choos. I will REMAIN POSITIVE!!! as I correct the misspellings on all of the memos on the board, because that is what I do.
I am N+, how 'bout you?
