Second Wind
Stories about running on empty: the shift work, the fog, the days off spent recovering, and the ordinary morning that finally felt like their own again.
“I'm too young to feel this tired all the time.”
The series, in order
The Monday I didn't dread
A night-shift nurse who spent her days off recovering from her days on finally breaks the cycle. What she changed, what she checked first, and the ordinary morning that told her it had worked.
The log she almost quit
For seven weeks, every page of Dana Ruiz's log said the same thing, and twice she nearly threw it out. The winter of boring pages, the night she wrote in capital letters, and a small word she didn't remember writing.
Running shoes, one year later
A year after the Monday she wrote one word in her log, Dana Ruiz is on her last miles in the old running shoes. A winter of short-staffed nights, a slow way back to the canal, and the coworker who asked if she could come along.
The birthday party where she didn't sit on the cooler
Two years after she spent a family birthday parked on a cooler, Dana Ruiz is back in the same backyard on her second day off, the one that used to feel like wet sand. Her sister notices before anyone says a word.
More from Second Wind
I fell asleep in the school pickup line. Twice.
Jenna nodded off in the car line with nine minivans going around her, and a school aide had to knock on her window. The second time, her seven-year-old explained the family to her little brother: Dad's the funny one, and Mom's the tired one.
I'm 38 and I say "I'm too old for that" about everything
Maggie said it about concerts, kickball, bangs and a 2 a.m. meteor shower, until she was holding the coats at her niece's roller-rink party while her 67-year-old mother laced up skates. The sentence she'd been hiding behind wasn't about age at all.
Night-shift nurses: the days off that aren't really off
Theo works three nights in the NICU and spent six years using his four days off to recover from them. Then his nine-year-old asked whether today was a sleep day or a real day, and he didn't have an answer.
The founder who couldn't remember why he started
A new hire asked Danny why he started his company, and a six-year founder heard himself answer with a slide from the investor deck. In the parking garage afterward, he tried to remember the real reason and couldn't find it.
The weekend I slept 14 hours and still woke up tired
Gene, a middle-school band director, went to bed at nine on a Saturday and woke up at 11:40 on Sunday, and he still had to decide whether putting on socks was worth it. Then his wife stopped joking and told him what she'd been hearing at night.