Sleeping in Shifts

My current job requires that I arise much earlier than I have previously been used to doing. My alarm goes off at 6:15 a.m., and I try to be out the door by 7:15 a.m. or so. I'm at work by about 7:45 a.m. I go through the motions for a good part of the morning, and it's not until 9:00 a.m. or a little after that I finally really wake up and function.

By noon, it feels like the day should be over, and by the time I leave work at 3:30 p.m. or so, my brain and stomach believe that it's dinner time. I spend a lot of time at work on my feet trying to anticipate and de-escalate one middle school crisis after the other, so I also get pretty physically and emotionally exhausted. By the time I arrive home, it's all I can do to grab something to eat and collapse on the couch. Of course, I usually also end up falling asleep.

I tend to then wake up at 7:00 p.m. reasonably rested and ready to go. This is all well and good, since this is when my normal working hour friend tend to also be ready to go for evening activities, but of course this also means I end up staying awake way past my self-designated bedtime. I'm still wide awake at 11:00 p.m., and I do everything in my power not to go to bed. I check my email hundreds of time, watch a 1/2 hour television show, surf the Internet; it really doesn't matter what, I just don't want to go to sleep.

You see, giving into sleep would mean that I am that much closer to tomorrow. And tomorrow is generally not something I really look forward to (at least when that tomorrow involves an agenda of stressful middle school work items. The more I prolong the night, the farther away boys throwing chairs through windows and girls running away from home seems.

But of course, when I wake up exhausted the next morning, after finally going to bed at 11:30 p.m. or midnight, I'm even less ready to face the issues of the day. I know it's a bad habit, but the alternative is even worse. I desperately need to stretch out my evenings and jam pack them full of events, or the thought of facing the following day seems even more depressing.

I only have 21 days left of actual work this school year (you were surprised I've counted them out?), so I think this sleep cycle will probably stick for now. I can sleep and do whatever I want this summer. I can make a whole day out of going to Walgreens, that's fine by me. But for now, I need to cram all I can into those precious school free waking hours.