I AM A HORRIBLE BLOGGER…I am so sorry for being several days late, especially as we near the end of this 40 day adventure. The last few days have been insanely crazy with shift changes and the experience of passing out the second I hit my bed. I promise days 34, 35 and 36 will be up tomorrow. I even meant wake up early today and get caught up, but my body refused to wake up.

I apologize again! Onto days 32 and 33!

 

Day 32/33: Bright Lights, Saving Graces, and the Number Game

 

Well, maybe not so much bright lights as I would say a bright sun; very bright sun that makes my eyes hurt and me wishing for the comfortable darkness that is my blanket-covered, windowed room.

Had a shift change today, and thank god it is only for today because I might have killed someone if I had to do this every day. I got saddled with the morning shift, from 4am to 4pm, which didn’t start out so horribly. I was at work during the nighttime hours, so the darkness was both comforting and welcoming.

mmm…darkness…

And then the sun came up.

Let me start by saying I have pale blue eyes, and by pale I mean they border on grey. Super bright lights, or well any light, hurts my eyes. I hate the eye doctor, and I’m not a fan of anyone trying to check my pupil dilation. Soft lighting, the glow of my laptop, all of these I can handle with ease. But a giant, flaming mass of light is not a part of any of those equations.

So, several hours after my new 8am bedtime, I sit at work cursing my boss, my coworkers, and myself for my inability to say no. Well, in this case I wasn’t given a choice, but I think I could have argued somehow. Every time I just happen to glance towards the windows my eyes constrict violently, leaving me with an instant headache and blurred vision. Damn sunlight…

I’m rarely out during the day; my friends are starting to claim that I am a vampire. I mean I got to work at 4pm so yea the sun is up, but the sun is starting to lower in the sky and my windows are tinted in my car, and I’ve spent 8 months wearing a hat….

Next to my ears, having my eyes hurt are excruciating….and did I mention it being passed my bedtime?

 

Actually, I messed up my schedule today, and now have been awake for 24 hours. The proverbial wall is kicking my ass, and not in a fun way. Fighting to not fall asleep at my desk and fighting to not fall asleep on my drive home.

I called 5 people before I could get someone to stay on the phone with me as I drove home so I wouldn’t crash. I was actually falling asleep in the parking lot of my job, which I knew meant I would be in serious trouble trying to get home. I called my mom, my ex-fiancé, my friend Old Timer, the Great Eye, Eva Vander, until I got a hold of my favorite Gleek and the girl responsible for my liberation from Facebook.

She was shocked to hear my voice hehehe. We’ve texted and chatted online for the last few years, but it has been close to 4 years that we haven’t actually spoken to each other on the phone. I hate the phone actually…something I get to blame both my exes for because they would sit on the phone for hours, complaining that we never talk, and yet they would be quiet…for hours…and hours and hours and hours…

I really hate talking on it….but when you are at risk of crashing your car in an attempt to get home that hatred simply melts away. Especially when you have a bubbly girl on the line excited to talk to you and chastising you for working too much. She is ridiculously adorable, and it was nice getting home with a smile on my face.

We actually chatted for two hours and not once was I bored although I had started to fall asleep a few times just from pure exhaustion. But it was awesome to hear her voice.

And then…I couldn’t sleep…managed to get a second wind and I was up for another 4 hours, so I called Old Timer back and my ex-fiancé. Chatted with Old Timer about…things I actually can’t remember, and listened to my ex-fiancé play house with her new girlfriend and her new step-son.  I’m pleasantly surprised at my lack at bitterness about that whole situation. I actually helped with some 3rd grade homework, which reminded me why I didn’t become a third grade teacher in the first place. Although, I was being a smartass, apparently my douche-baggery comes out in full force when I’m sleep-deprived.

Insomnia sucks three ways from Sunday. Just saying.

I got off the phone finally around 7ish and realized that the hunger pains I was feeling were probably keeping me awake so 15 minutes later found me texting my Gleek, who gently scolded me for not going to sleep hehehe, and making ramen noodles. I did manage to pass out eventually, somewhere in texting about my dinner and calling my Gleek a silly girl…and I didn’t wake up until day 33, around 3am. It was really good to hear her voice again…

This is the glamour of my life.

So I woke up at 3:33 am on day 33, which now that I am looking at this, is somewhat amusing. You know, for a person who is always claiming a deep-seeded hatred of math, I have a salacious love affair with numbers, and ironically statistics. I say ironically because statistics is the reason why I didn’t pursue a psychology degree in college, but that isn’t the point.

I love numbers because they are symbols, because they have a meaning. I may not have always been able to understand math in the sense of solving equations or whatever else my teachers were trying to explain, but what I learned over the years was how to make numbers into meanings. Maybe if my teachers were able to create that understanding for me…what meaning their lessons had, I think I would have understood the concepts better. But they were just there, and from an early age I had understood that simply because something existed doesn’t mean it actually had meaning.

For instance…I woke up on day 33 on the 3rd month at 3:33 am…the 3rd hour…Now we go further,  I have 3 siblings…all 3 of us have the same initials. We are all born on the same day of our months, and if you add the first and second numbers of our birthdays you get 21 in total, and divide that by 7 and you get three…My sister is the artist, I am the writer, and my brother is the musician…

Actually…I never realized just how much meaning the rest of the world puts on the number 3….check it out in this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_(number).

Anyway, I like numbers. Except at 6am when I know I should get more sleep for the day otherwise I’ll be passing out in the middle of my shift again, and losing my job is a non-option right now. But hey, I got hired onto my new company so it’s all of the good. More money, more hours, less sleep, but hey I’ll be surviving.

These two days have been a blur, as usual, in regards to my routine being messed up. It’s a learning experience for me, the realization that when my routine is messed with I am left feeling whole unstable and backwards. I think many people experience that feeling. I joked around with my co-workers about never doing a morning shift again, and they laughed with me.

But I was serious. I didn’t belong there. A part of me has always thrived in the nighttime. I’m comfortable there. I feel safe there. The world doesn’t interrupt my thoughts they way it does during the day. At night I can watch the world change in the way everyone else misses.

Also I have less job-responsibility at night, so the whole being busy during my workday just doesn’t sit with me. Call me lazy, but I like my current set-up. I’ll eventually shift again, but the world has given me an opportunity that I won’t waste for now.

Question of the day:

 

How do you love?