Out of the night

Since I started hiatus, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from me. This, of course, is not true since I've gained like 3 metric tons since starting (W)RS. You know how I feel about bad food as an unhealthy substitute for mental health: it rules. When the rest of my life is spiraling out of control, Mrs. Fields always knows how to put a smile on my rapidly-expanding face.

My last night of work was fine. I transcribed my ass off for 4 hours and could not have gotten out of the building fast enough. I spent the next few days decompressing and coming to terms with the fact that I never had to be nocturnal again, despite the big game I talk about always preferring nighttime to daytime. I can't believe it's been 4 months since every weekend wasn't like adjusting to GMT all over again, except it was more like adjusting to Pacific Time after living on GMT, 5 (or 6, or 7) days a week.

In any case, I promise this is the last you'll hear me go on about my stupid schedule. It really became all I had to talk about for a third of a year, and now that it's over, I don't know if I'm surprised or just disappointed at how thoroughly it gobbled up my life, almost like it was a chewy, delicious donut. What? I'm fat now. This is how we understand the world.

What I didn't expect was how nervous I would be to reenter my own social life. It's not just that there are people I care about who haven't heard from me in 4 months, and I feel terrible about it. (Which I do.) It's this nagging fear that I still won't have anything to say, or I still won't be fun, or when people ask what I've been up to, I'll still have nothing to offer but one-word answers.

I mean, god, I was only working nights for a few months. It's not like I was abroad for a year, right?