Thinking Time

Lately I’ve become a night-shift worker. They kind of eased me into it, without me realising, and now all I seem to get are close shifts. “They” are McDonalds, and the result of what they’ve done has led to small changes in my life. I now get a lot more tired and lethargic during the day (I don’t finish until 1-2am) and have the odd siesta to compensate, and also I’ve found that my social life has suffered too, as I often work Friday and Saturday nights.

I don’t really look forward to these late-night shifts, but once I’m there it’s not so bad. Usually there are nice/funny people working with me, and later on in the night when it’s quiet – and I have to sweep, mop, empty bins, wipe tables, etc – I have a lot of time to think. I quite like this time, because I can reflect on things that have been happening in my life. The monotony of my tasks puts me in some kind of zone, where I don’t need to think about what I’m actually doing, it just happens, and this allows me to... get lost in my mind I guess you’d say. Lately I’ve been using this time to think of things that have happened to me that would make good stories or one of these journal entries – like the man on the tram, my friend who’s coming down to visit on Friday, the homeless guy I gave two dollars to, or a holiday I could be going on with somebody awesome. These things tend to make the time go by faster.

The strange thing about it though is that I’m not sure whether I would retreat into my thoughts if I didn’t have the late night shifts in which to do so. I suppose the reason for this could be traced back to my extreme laziness (I could think about things more deeply if I put my mind to it, rather than being forced to because there’s nothing else worth doing), and the induced coma-like state that commerce bored me into last year. Having said that, I realise my mind needs retraining, especially if I’m going to give this writing course my all this year. I’m glad this has dawned upon me, because it’s about time I became more proactive than reactive.

I’m working again tonight and tomorrow night, so there’s a lot more thinking time ahead. I just hope I don’t forget all the interesting/potentially brilliant ideas that come to me!

For my next journal entry I’ll try to do another more creative piece rather than this self-contemplationary (which is now a word) stuff.

Trying to think of a catchy sign-off,

Dale.