Came home from another stretch of overnights this morning and just sat in the driveway for a while before I could make myself go inside. Not tired in the normal way, more like my body forgot which part of the day it’s supposed to be awake for.
The garden’s a mess. The tomatoes are hanging on but the basil gave up completely, just gone soft and brown at the base, and I know exactly why, it’s because I haven’t been out there except to dump water on things in a hurry before crashing. I keep telling myself I’ll catch up on a day off, and then the day off ACTUALLY comes and I’m so wrung out that even standing at the sink feels like a chore.
Same story with running. Bought the shoes a while back (the ones with the cushioned heel that I was kind of proud of) and they’re still sitting by the door, laces stiff and barely touched. On the overnight stretch I’m too fried to even think about it, and on days off I end up sleeping half the day just trying to get my body back to something normal, and whatever’s left over goes to the garden or errands or laundry that piled up while I was gone. There’s nothing left over for anything that’s just mine.
It’s not any one thing that’s wrong exactly, it’s more that the rotation eats the part of the week where I’d actually do the stuff I want to do, and I keep ending up choosing between sleep and the garden and never getting anywhere near the running part. A coworker who’s been on rotating shifts way longer than me keeps saying you just adjust eventually, but right now it doesn’t feel like adjusting, it feels like losing time I don’t get back.
Needed to get that out somewhere.