I woke up this morning at 5:30 following a 13-hour coma. It's 7PM on a Saturday night, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm irritated by the bass pounding through the floor of the apartment above me. I'm watching The Jane Austen Book Club. I was under no illusion that working the night shift would be easy when I started. But three weeks later, I didn't know it would be so hard.

The best part of it is the work. Once I'm at my desk, I'm content. I feel valuable. And I learn. But when the night is over, I feel like I'm coming home to nothingness. I fill the time I'm awake with reading, writing, listening to music, or watching movies. I even started running. In the end, though, there's not enough to conceal the fact that I'm living in an entire different universe from my friends and family.

And I miss them.