Night people.

The night people are easy to spot. You wont find them during hours of daylight. Bleary eyed, shitty mood, coffee breath. Usually sleep deprived or unable to sleep during the day. Very much akin to Nic Cage's character in 'Bringing out the dead'.

Night people know what good coffee is but will drink it shitty none the less. We will drink it to the point where it keeps you up in those painful morning hours when ALL YOU WANT is to fall asleep blissully but your mind will not shut down. The night people will nod to one another in the gas station knowing full well their lot in life, why they are there. We can usually spot each other miles away you know. The first time I considered myself a "night person" was after my first deployment to Afghanistan. 80% of that deployment I workedf and operated at night. Every. damn. day. When I got back I was a wreck. Not sleeping right. Out all hours of the night. Little has changed. It doesnt matter, you look for similar life. Some people can handle it fine, some people are perfectly adept. Others it will crush and ruin. Never seeing the sun nor your family- if you have one.


The worst thing about being a night person is the switching back and forth, days, mids,days, mids..so on and so forth. That type of repetitive and back and forth nonsense will turn you LITERALLY into a zombie. You will feel like a walking corpse and chances are you will look and or smell like one. Your diet is thrown in the shitter, you resort to comfort foods to...wait for it..comfort you. Who wants the discipline of watching what they eat in favor of eating something that makes you feel human. On that note, I do not recomend a low carb diet of ANY sort while switching back and forth. You will be the devil incarnate.


Trust in coffee. It will pull you through. Energy drinks are like sniffing glue. Nowhere near the impact of a European flavored roast resplendant in heavy cream. You have to have some sort of residual weirdness in you to be a full fledged night person. To be awake while others sleep is creepy in a way. Whether by choice or out of curiosity. "Normal" people by omission cant fathom being awake past 10. This is where they end and we begin. The "Devils hour" and "Nothing good happens after midnight" these terms are popular but sometimes it's the fact that NOTHING happens during these hours. The still, the quiet, the sound of others breathing in the night can be excruciating. You wait for that chaos to break out. You wait for the storm from the quiet. The interruption. You wait for that other night person who cannot take it. Listen closely it will happen.


Do not become addicted to the lifestyle. It will turn you miserable before long. If you can avoid it- avoid it like the plague. Its a strange trip for anyone to have to take. Cops, Firefighters...god knows who else they get it. We get it. Burning the candle from both ends with a flamethrower.................