Seems every few months, we start a new way of life and another ends. Always beginning and ending. When is the happy middle? You know, when everything is mostly consistent and predictable, you can take a refreshing breath and know what today will be and just relax and enjoy. Like when you put on your favorite movie you’ve seen a hundred times and, about 15 minutes in, you enter this mindset – you’re in a familiar place wherein you know what to expect, what comes next, and how long you will be there.
Maybe that mindset doesn’t exist in life.
Anyway.
So, tomorrow, Terra goes to work 6am to 6pm. And the same on Friday and Saturday. And that’s the new schedule. We’ll be going to bed at 8pm, getting up at 4am to get her ready for work.
She’s been working Fri-Sun 6p-6a since December. Our life has been anything but normal since. Work days means a lot of being quiet all day while she sleeps until 3p and Wesley only sees her for an hour or so when he gets home and she’s getting ready for work. She gets up at noon on Monday, after only 5 hours of sleep so she has some semblance of a day. Tuesday she gets up at 9am. Wednesday and Thursday she gets up with me and Wesley at 7. See? Trying to slide into a day schedule for her days off. Thursday she stays up as late as she can and tries to sleep until 3p on Friday.
See how complicated that has been? And, no matter what she does, she’s tired every day.
So, this is a good change. Well, mostly. Working day shift will he more stressful. How stressful remains to be seen. Plus, we’ve liked going to this other church on Wednesday nights. It’s also sad to lose our family time on the couch four nights a week but nights sort of won’t exist for us anymore. We’re going to one evening a week (Wednesday) to stay caught up on our audio theater adventures :) (We’re currently working our way through NPR Star Wars.)
But, the best part of all of this will be her not being tired all the time and being on a natural/normal rhythm of sleeping nights and waking up early. We’ll have four long, full days together as a family every week. We’ll go back to our home church on Sunday mornings. Oh, and speaking of Sundays, we’re gonna start having weekly slumber party nights again, something we haven’t been able to regularly do since September. And I am excited to have three full work days while she’s gone. I’ll be more or less working when she is and this house will sparkle.
So, we’re cautiously optimistic. Most people know I cannot function outside of rigid routine and we had a pretty solid one – albeit unpleasant – for a while now. Time to re-write, experiment, try and err, and figure out a new one. But, we’ve got a lot more to work with now.
Here’s to moving toward a happy middle! :)