Goodbye, Nights. Hello, Days.

Well, I'm done.

With nights, that is. After 3&1/2 years working the night shift as a nurse, staying up from 7pm till 7am, I am moving to a lovely day shift position. I'm doing it mainly for my home-life. To see my husband more often and at normal times. To be able to meet friends for dinner any night of the week. To not have to "catch up" on sleep on my day off. To gain back the 10 years they say night shifts take off your life. Heck, even to watch a tv series in the evening if I want.

But the decision to move to days comes at a cost. I have wonderful, wonderful friends on my shift that I will miss working with. We are quite a team. Night shifters stick together; you don't have the built in extra help of administration that day shifters have if the place goes crazy. You're kind of on your own and you figure out how to make it work with fewer people - so we get close quick. I will miss them.

I will also miss late night club-victims (drunk 20-something-year-olds), midnight McDonalds runs, that slow time of night around 4am that you spend gossiping about Brangelina, the teamwork and comraderie of staying up when others are sleeping, the breakfast outings at IHOP after a long night, even being dragged to the gym at 7am by my friends.

So here goes. Goodbye, nights. Hello, days.