I'm wired, [i]way[/i] too wired to sleep.

It's a bad habit of mine during the nights. Most people would be bouncing off the walls after their second energy drink. I lost track after four and definitely had more just to get me through the twelve hours. It was small wonder that I was an insomniac. 'Sleep is a crutch' I'd tell them, and I'm pretty well known in the shop for staying late and not going the fuck home. Just like I did this morning. My shift ended at six, with changeover occurring 45 minutes past when it should've. That was my problem, I couldn't just step away and let someone else handle it. Everything I did or everything that was going to happen needed to be summed up to the best of my ability and neatly understood both at a professional level and at the level of the amateur. I might've been filling in for the helpdesk, but my other billet was that of a liaison. I take pride in my job and my ability to pick up on what others don't, explain things so that they could be understood, and give a full report. It gives me purpose and it's work worth doing. I was already changed over into civvies and walking around like a zombie when SSgt kicked me out at half past 0800, trying to perfect that report. I couldn't leave things lie like that, besides, there were a lot of things that happened during the day that I couldn't get done at night like collaborate with people. Same thing with at night, when it was daytime in other countries. When I joke with people at work about putting up a cot in the server room, I'm only ever really half-joking.

And now I'm finishing my day how I started it: in the smoke pit. I have a problem, I know, I just don't happen to care. The nicotine takes the edge off, it helps me focus when my brain gets spinning and de-stress when I'm overwhelmed. I practically live in the smoke pit though, and that's the problem. I used to try to rationalize it until I realized that I just didn't give a shit and there's no reason for me to quit. I shuffle my tired self inside, my backpack with my cammies and whatever food I didn't eat from the night before slung over a shoulder. I'm floating on my feet now, it feels like, like my body is a vessel for my brain to get to where it can do it's thing. I dig my room key out of my back pocket, a key card, and feed it into the reader on the door. It blinks red, no dice. Feed it again, no dice. Once more, red blinking... green. The door opens and I shuck my bag onto the empty rack. I'm fortunate enough that I don't have a roommate, and it was a blessing at times like these. The room is exactly how I left it, laptop charging on my desk, the only notion of disarray being my tossed sheets and my running shoes on the carpet with my sweat-soaked socks still in them. [i]Fuuuuuuuuuuck[/i] I don't wanna work out todaaaaaaaaay. I don't even shower after getting home, don't eat, I set my alarm for 1600 instead. Should be enough time for me to get a 30 minute jog in, shower up, make it to the shoppette for chow and get ready to do this song and dance all over again this evening. It was past 0930 when I managed to get out of my clothes and into bed, and even later when I drift off to sleep. I tossed and turned for a good 20 minutes, but now the exhaustion is taking hold.

I enter the peace of sleep, the escape from reality that it brings as my heavy eyelids close and I sink into the covers.