168-Hour Day

When you leave for work on one day for a work day that starts the next, the groundwork is already laid for never quite knowing what day it is. You are done working when others are just starting. You are heading for sleep when others are just getting up. You are caught up in a world where Tuesday means Monday, and where Monday means your weekend ends Sunday night.

I walk in the world sometimes, with my day into night head and my inability to keep the days straight, and I begin to wonder--am I really going from day to day, or am I living a single 168-hour day each week? After all, what separates one day from the next...?

Dark and light? But if my "morning" is dark, and my "night" is light...?

Sleep? But if each sleep is just a nap, and the naps happen early and late and before meals and after...?

Food? If cereal is for breakfast and chicken is for dinner, but overnight snacks range from one to the other...?

Schedule? If a day is based on an order of events, but the events just blend one into the next...?

There is no 168-hour day. We make up our days however we can. We find the borders, we take the pauses, and we move from one day to the next. And when 168 hours have passed, we start a new week. Full of 24-hour stretches. And here and there, what seems like an endless day...