The Night Shift

There's a thing that happens when you move timezones that no one really talks about. It's always there, but I find it's especially potent this time of year; when the days are shorter and the light dims to a constant cool grey. It's "the night shift".

Specifically what I mean by that is that, when you move far enough away from the important people in your life, every day starts to feel a bit like picking up a new shift at work, trading a 9am-5pm for a 9pm-5am. Your sleep schedule starts lining up with when your friends and family are at work, and you live for the little glimmers of time when you're awake at the same time as them, swapping stories over your dinner and their breakfast (or vice-versa). It can be a lonely thing, especially times like now when all of my friends back home are living the daily reality of a government crashing in around them. I'm sure for many of them think I disappeared or "got out", if they noticed at all that I'm no longer online at the same times they are.

But I don't say any of that to be sad about it, even if I am sometimes. Putting a name to it helps. I worried for a long time that people stopped reaching out because they resented me or my decision to move away, or maybe I just wasn't interesting anymore, but it's never anything like that really — most people don't think that way — it's just The Night Shift.

The temptation of The Night Shift is to lean into it; to stay up later than you normally would to see who logs in, to wait an extra few minutes for that friend to reply. But if you're in The Night Shift like I am, I'd encourage you to resist that as much as you can. Unless you have a long-distance community with very strict schedules, waiting for those messages that may never come can lead to more sleepless nights than you can afford this season. Certainly more than you deserve.

Instead I think the answer to the loneliness comes from the oncoming Autumn/Winter season we're rapidly approaching. When the common squirrel or magpie feels the temperature drop, they start building their little hidey-holes, their treasure chests of tasty treats that will help them survive the darkest months, and come back to reward them in the Spring. They know, in whatever instinctual animal form of knowing, that this practice is the stuff of life itself, and the preparation should be long and careful if it is to succeed at all. The same can, and I'd argue should, be a practice for us.

Even though our phones and laptops and tablets and watches can send messages across the globe instantly, we know from our experience in the Night Shift that expecting an immediate reply is purchasing an express ticket to the land of disappointment, on the cable car of self-inflicted rejection. And we know that that's no one's fault, but in the moment our feelings often override that logic, especially in the cold and dark. But, if we can flip that around and work slowly and intentionally at the practice of community, we can change the script from a defeat to a marching advance — building the messages up like Cold War secrets in a spy's dead drop, lying in wait to be received by our counterparts abroad. Changing the quick "hey" into poems and essays and love letters that say "yes, we're still here! we still care! and we know you do too."

It's... stupid, I know. Writing all of this is a bit of a faff and it's my way of saying yes, I'm still here, and I still care, and I know you do too. It's a hard time to stay in touch, especially when we're oceans apart and life is so much more difficult now. But I think we can do it if we do it slowly and with kindness for ourselves. We're all just doing our best.

Let us turn our tweets and skeets and snaps and bleets into acorns for the Winter. Seeds for the Spring. Letters from the Night Shift.