Do you ever wonder what prompts people to work the night shift? I have a great love of the dark and quiet night hours. I have worked this shift since my second son was a sickly child needing 24 hour parental care. Hubby and I took turns being available. I tried day shifts but was called away too often to rush him to the hospital for breathing problems. He has long since outgrown the asthma which coloured his early life but i am still stuck working nights. I have done quite a bit of day work over the years since he grew up and left home but I invariably return to night work between all the other jobs.
I have been nursing for 45 years. This is my last year of full-time work, fulfilling the childhood promise I made at age seven to be as good as the nurse who took care of me when I was sick. Night work has its benefits but at four in the morning and really feeling crapped out, all I can think of is Paul Simon’s song, Still Crazy After All These Years.
I love the music. It is a great song for reflection. The chords give rise to a kind of birth or new dawn through the course of the song. The words push you to remember a similar kind of meeting with fate in which you can reflect on the way life was and the way it is. There is a lovely trumpet solo in the middle which helps you to rise above the angst of despair.
So, at four in the morning, when I am really crapped out and definitely yawning and aching for the sleep my body so desperately needs, I hum the tune, try to pull the trumpet notes from the recesses of my brain and push the struggle to sleep away.
The number of nights left to work are numbered or contados as the Spanish say. Love their version better. If I can count the days to retirement it will seem more real. In the dark, the peace and quiet has its benefits and its joy, if only I could stop yawning!
The Will to be True Blog 
I don’t know how to respond when you thank me, so I’ll say, it’s my please here. 🙂
I tried working the night shift when my first baby was three months. I couldn’t do it. I could get up at 3, 4, 5 in the morning, but seldom nights. 😉
It’s not for everyone but my body usually comes alive at midnight, probably because I was born at midnight. I can certainly admire early risers. I just love your pictures of birds. It would be worth getting up early just to watch them go about their early morning work.
My father told me he heard birds chirping while he was in the fathers waiting room, way back when on a May Day! 😉