Ships passing in the night . . .

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This is sometimes how I feel Sarge and I live our life together. We just randomly pass by each other in this house we share. 

It’s because we work opposite schedules. My work hours are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. His work hours are 2:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. 

Our sleep schedules are also radically different. I go to bed at 10 p.m. as I am usually exhausted from all the running around with the kids in the afternoon. I then get up early with the kids to get them ready for school and go to work myself.

Sarge comes home from work and isn’t very tired. He then stays up fairly late. His minimum bedtime is sometime after midnight. In reality, it’s more often around 1 a.m. or later before he comes to bed. These late nights make it very difficult for him to get up and see the children and me in the morning. 

I have asked him to try and go to bed earlier but his argument is that he’s not tired when he first gets home from work. As a rebuttal comment, Sarge then asks me if I’m ready to go to bed as soon as I get home from work. 

When I am in a smart-a** mood, I want to respond that yes, I do want to go to bed as soon as I get home but I have to take care of the children. 

We do get our weekends together. Unfortunately, we also have all sorts of various other things going on during the weekends. So we don’t exactly get quality family time together then either. 

Most of the time, we adapt to this non-traditional lifestyle. We get used to it and we move on. But some nights, I find it very frustrating. Like tonight, when my head is pounding and the kids are whiny. 

This “pass in the night” just doesn’t work for me all the time.