Now that I freelance completely and don’t have to commute to a daily job (thanks to my hard-working, nuclear-power-plant-employed engineer-husband), I find that I’ve turned into a sort of sleep-chameleon, adapting to his ever-changing schedule. He does what’s called “shift work,” meaning that he’ll work a semi-normal day shift for a few weeks and then has to work a middle shift for a week, and then an overnight shift for another week.
I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to adapt easily, a quality I wish I possessed in greater amounts. He’s very laid back about most things, including whether he gets enough sleep and when that sleep happens. How he can fall into a deep sleep in our sun-laden bedroom during the day while construction workers, loud children, and garbage trucks are all zipping around outside is beyond me. Yet another reason I adore the guy: He rolls with the punches.
And me? By the end of his overnight shift week, I’m staying up till four in the morning myself, tweaking something on my computer till it bleeds while watching a marathon of “Storage Wars” on A&E in the background, volume up to ear-splitting decibels just because nobody’s home and I can.
Murray, the guinea pig, hasn’t complained yet. Then again, I bribe him with celery and carrots and he doesn’t speak good English, so perhaps he’s royally peeved at me and I just can’t tell with that blank stare of his.
At any rate, last night was one of those nights. I revamped my entire Web site and blog all day and long into the night, gulping down glass after glass of sugar-free lemonade and yelling at the television for Darrell to just buy the stupid storage locker for $500 and take his chances already.
It was glorious fun for a night owl, and I love that I get a week like this every month or so, when I can indulge my inner college student. I’ll be sad to see it go after tonight, with hubby back on early-morning duty on Saturday. I’ll get up, bleary-eyed, and make him breakfast before he leaves, with the sky still dark outside, but then I’ll head straight back to bed for a few hours, zonking into oblivion until the sun comes up and the sleep hours add up to something a lot closer to eight than he usually gets.
Some of us are just more adaptable than others.