midnight train..

i seemed to have hopped on again for the long haul. one week quickly turned into four, and i have no idea where the time has gone. or where it is in general.. i tried to take a nap this afternoon and while i was sitting there i had a random thought 'i wonder what time it is' feeling as though it's about 3am. but no, of course it can't be, it's 2pm and i've lost all sense of the time and day.

the scary thing is, it's my last week i'm going into tomorrow, and i'm starting to get 'used to it' again aka my body is starting to adjust to this backwards eating pattern expecting lunch at 3 in the morning, and i've just accepted that i feel like a piece of crap every day because my circadian rhythm has been all but blown to bits. i'll just have to take it as a learning experience so i don't feel so much like it was a horrible mistake.

and what did i learn? well, i suppose a better appreciation for my regular job, which i used to think was tedious.. well what i'm doing overnights is ten times the tedium on less than half the sleep. when i go back to my regularly scheduled program i'll be much happier knowing it's not so bad as i thought, and even though it seems 'boring' there's lots of room to learn and expand.

another thing i learned is that i do have limits and that i have pushed them. this was okay for me a few years ago as a temporary solution in my work situation, but i just can't handle it anymore. that's why i begged to get off nights, even transferred to get out of the shift.. it started to affect my health and my life in ways i'm not willing to just accept. my house, my garden and my social life are all suffering from neglect.. same with my creativity, my diet..

i was heartbroken a couple mornings ago when i realized that half of my garden had died already. was there a frost? it's been warm for a while it would have had to been nearly a week ago. did i miss it? how did i not notice since? and the sink and counter was overflowing with dishes. 90% tupperware from us bringing lunches to work, i barely eat besides once a day on this shift because i'm too exhausted to cook or prepare a meal during the day. anyhoo back to the garden, when i took it down today and saw how much had been wasted, i was heartbroken. how could i let this happen?

i'm not trying to get down on myself or anything, i just want to remember this feeling.. which is why i started blogging in the first place. i can't remember anything. how can i appreciate life's lessons if i can't remember them? biggest lesson yet; time management. i can't believe i thought i had so little time before, i have so much less now.. and with that realization comes the motivation to make better use of the time i now know i have.

that being said, autumn is upon us, garden season is coming to a close, and it's time to move on to other projects. many of them indoor ones.. something to keep the mind occupied and growing during cabin fever months. i have already got a jump start on a couple of courses i'm interested in, and a decorating project in our kitchen. we have also been dreaming up ideas for next year's garden design, which will be much better next year based on what we learned this time around.

for now i'm going to enjoy the one night i have off and be satisfied that i finally got around to taking care of much needed gardening, got the house in a much cleaner state than it's been in all week, and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's only three nights away.