The Solitude1 of Working Nights

By Shazia Memon

There was a two-year period in my life I refer to as the Dark Ages.2. 在我人生中有那么两年的时间，我将其称之为“黑暗时期”。Wake-up alarms set for the PM were intentional, not accidental.3. 我把起床闹铃定在午后叫醒，这是有意为之，而非无意之举。And sunset signaled the start of my day, while I fell asleep shortly after dawn.

At most hospitals, newly employed nurses start out working the night shift and transition to days once they reach higher seniority.4. transition: 过渡，转变；seniority: 资历。While many people have pulled all-nighters at some point in their lives, to live a prolonged nocturnal existence is an entirely different story—only those who experience it can truly understand it.5. all-nighter: 持续一整夜的活动，词组pull an all-nighter是“通宵熬夜，开夜车”之意；prolonged: 持续很久的；nocturnal:夜间的。When after-hours are your actual hours, it disrupts your internal biological clock, or circadian rhythm.6. after-hours: 业余时间，下班后的时间；disrupt: 破坏，扰乱；internal biological clock: 体内生物钟；circadian rhythm:（24小时）昼夜节律，生理节律。Thankfully, my “shift-work sleep disorder” only lasted a couple of years.7. shift-work: 轮班制；sleep disorder: 睡眠障碍，睡眠紊乱。But even in that short interim, life was defined by a thoroughly confused circadian cycle.8. interim: 间歇，过渡时期；circadian cycle:昼夜节律周期。

If you have ever taken a trip halfway across the globe,you’ve probably experienced some degree of jet-lag9. jet-lag: 生理时差。.Working the night shift is essentially like living in a perpetual state of jet-lag; you are always in that tug-of-war battle between your mind and body.10. perpetual: 永恒的，永远的；tug-of-war:激烈争夺。My hours on nights were 7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. No matter how many shifts in a row I would work or how many consecutive days I’d have off, every time I started to feel like I was adjusting to either daylight or twilight, it was time to go back to the opposite and I was at square one again.11. 无论我连续上多少天夜班，或者我连续休息多少天，每当我感觉自己开始适应白天休息或黎明时分休息的时候，就又要重新调整到相反的作息状态，而我又回到了原点。consecutive: 连续的；square one: 原点，起点。It was a vicious, endless cycle of midnight insomnia and afternoon siestas.12. vicious: 恶性的；insomnia: 失眠；siesta:午睡，午休。As I tried to readjust my schedule to accommodate for errands that could only be accomplished in the 9 to 5 schedule that the rest of the world existed in (trips to the bank, doctors appointments, etc.),13. readjust: 再调整；accommodate for: 适应；errand: 差事。it resulted in inadequate sleep,and so I always functioned in a state of low energy and slow motion.

作为新入职的护士，一般都要上夜班。大多数人或许都有过熬夜的经历，但长时间黑白颠倒的生活所带来的痛苦恐怕只有那些真正经历过的人才能体会。生物钟乱了，昼夜节律乱了，新陈代谢乱了，仿佛身体的一切都乱了。与之相伴的是社交生活也乱了——彻底无缘于周末夜晚的娱乐，也没法去参加朋友的生日聚餐——因为上过夜班的人要用白天的时间补觉。最可气的是很多日常琐事只能在白天完成，比如去银行、看医生等等。然而，夜班的痛苦远不止这些……

While some co-workers had difficulty sleeping in the day and resorted to ear plugs, dark curtains, and eye masks, I personally had no problem immediately crashing after work.14. resort to: 采取，动用；ear plug: 防噪音耳塞；crash:〈俚〉入睡。My issue was never in falling asleep, but I’ve always struggled to wake up. I still set about eleven alarms every morning. The distinguishing feature in working nights is not having trouble waking up, but the complete disorientation that ensues almost every time you do.15. 上夜班的显著特点不是无法醒来，而是几乎每次睡醒之后那种完全头昏脑涨的状态。disorientation: 迷惑，头脑混乱； ensue: 接踵发生。My roommates also have anecdotes of me waking up in a frenzy and blurting out “Who’s watching my kids, who’s watching my kids?!”16. anecdote: 趣闻，轶事；frenzy: 异常兴奋，极度激动；blurt out: 脱口说出。(I work in a pediatric hospital17. pediatric hospital: 儿科医院。). Other times, I have been told that I would get up with a jolt, thinking I was late for work, and then collapse back into a deep sleep when I realized it was only 1 p.m.When your biological clock is winded in reverse, you can’t help but lose your sense of time.18. 当你的生物钟被调到相反的方向时，你无法不失去你的时间观念。

Accompanying the strain19. strain: 极度紧张，重负。on our biological clocks was the strain on our social lives. Many social gatherings occur at night and were missed for work. It was particularly depressing heading to the hospital at 6 p.m. on a beautiful summer Saturday as everyone around you planned for an evening of fun. And the problem about working nights is that even if you are working one isolated shift, it doesn’t mean sacrificing only those twelve hours. It also requires sleep during the day before the shift, and most of the day after. No matter how much you explain this to others,though, it never comes out right when you tell a friend you can’t make it to her 2 p.m. birthday lunch because you will be sleeping. And when you roll out of bed at 4 p.m. on a Sunday and bump into your roommate’s friends hanging out in the living room, the look of shock you are received with makes you cringe.20. bump into: 撞上，碰见；cringe: 畏缩，退缩。You attempt to defend yourself, but even after you explain your profession and hours, as you glance down at your pajamas and fuzzy slippers and try to calm the monstrosity that is your bed hair,you can’t help but actually feel like the bum they judge you to be.21. 你试图为自己辩解，但即使你解释了自己的职业和工作时间，当你低头看到自己的睡衣和毛茸茸的拖鞋，努力理顺刚睡起来的乱发，实际上你必定还是觉得他们会把你当成一个懒鬼来看。monstrosity: 怪异性，荒谬性；bed hair: 起床时的乱发；bum:无业游民，懒鬼。

The most painful moments of your social life, however, are when you are off of work. There’s nothing more disappointing than when you are wide awake and ready to hang out until the morning, and it turns out to be one of those rare occasions when everyone calls it a night early.22. 你十分清醒，准备厮混到天亮，但结果是大家居然都早早就结束回家，没什么比这更让人失望的了。call it a night: 〈口〉今晚 就到此结束。You try to carry the party on, but to no avail23. to no avail: 徒然，无效。. Eventually you end up at home,surfing through the Internet.

Unless you live with someone who stays up late—then perhaps you are not passing time in solitude. But most married night nurses share that they didn’t see their spouses for days at a time, only traces of evidence that someone was home and asleep while they were at work.

When people are forced to stay up all night, they tend to constantly snack to gain energy and fight their body’s natural inclination to sleep and rest.24. snack: v. 吃点心，吃快餐；inclination:倾向。My urges to munch on something were strongest around 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. (the two times of the night when I would feel like I was hitting a wall),and I usually fulfilled those urges with peanut M&M’s and Lay’s Sour Cream and Cheddar chips.25. munch: 用力咀嚼；M&M’s: 美国玛氏巧克力豆；Lay’s Sour Cream: 乐事酸奶；Cheddar chips: 切达奶酪薯条。Thankfully, all the weight gained over those years is usually lost within a couple of months of transitioning to day shift.

There is a certain camaraderie26. camaraderie: 同志情谊，友情。on the night shift that you can’t find anywhere else. The majority of the staff are newer and younger, and less burnt out27. burnt out: 劳累，心力交瘁。than the day staff. When I finally made the switch, however, as the quality of my life outside of work drastically improved, I realized I could never voluntarily relive the Dark Ages.28. drastically: 大幅度地，彻底地；relive: 重新过……的生活。I now run on the same clock as the diurnal29. diurnal: 白天的。majority of the world around me. I appreciate the ability to carry out everyday errands during business hours. And I’m grateful that when I wake up, my mind is lucid enough to know that there aren’t any serious implications to snoozing, and I can press that button with ease.30. 令我很感激的是，每天醒来之时，我的头脑都足够清醒，知道即使打个盹儿也不会造成什么严重影响，因此我可以轻松地将（闹钟的）那个按钮摁下去。lucid: 清醒的；implication: 影响；snooze:〈口〉打瞌睡，小睡；with ease: 容易地，轻松地。