Two nights in a row, the world outside slipped into dreams while I stepped into the steady hum of the hospital night—the kind of hours where the air feels heavier, quieter, and yet somehow charged with urgency. The corridors glowed under cold fluorescent lights. The beeping of monitors rose and fell like a strange kind of lullaby, and my footsteps joined the quiet chorus of nurses moving from bay to bay.
Night shifts have their own rhythm. Some nights, they pass in a slow, manageable tide. But these last two were not that. They were relentless—a flood of stroke referrals, each one arriving as if guided by some invisible force straight to my care. It felt like I had become a magnet, drawing in every urgent case, while I could see some of my colleagues move through their shifts with fewer patients to see, fewer alarms to answer. It’s not resentment—it’s curiosity, a quiet wondering at the patterns of fate.
In the early years, I would have taken it personally, maybe even as bad luck. But I’ve come to see it differently. Nights like these have been my greatest teachers. They have taught me that focus is not about staring harder at a checklist—it is about staying present when the hours stretch thin and the tasks pile high. It is about resisting the temptation to scatter your mind across a hundred worries, and instead anchoring yourself to the patient in front of you, to the conversation at hand, to the single next thing that needs to be done.
Grace under pressure is another lesson these nights demand. Not the polished, smiling grace you show in photographs, but the quiet, resilient kind that only surfaces when your body is tired, your coffee has gone cold, and yet you choose—deliberately—to meet each moment with steadiness. To answer questions without letting your voice shake. To make decisions without letting the weight of them crush your spirit. To remember that your energy sets the tone, not just for yourself, but for everyone who relies on you in that moment.
I have learned that it’s not the “easy” shifts that shape you most—it’s the ones that push you to the edge of your endurance, that strip away all the unnecessary noise, and reveal what you are truly capable of carrying. These magnet nights, as exhausting as they are, leave behind more than fatigue. They leave behind proof. Proof that I can walk through hours that demand everything from me, and still keep a part of myself steady and intact.
And it’s here I realise—there’s one word I think we use too often: busy. It’s the default answer to “How are you?” The badge of honour or the shield against further questions. But busy doesn’t tell the story of nights like these. It doesn’t speak of the quiet victories, the split-second decisions, the moments where grace matters as much as skill. I wasn’t just busy—I was engaged. Steadfast. Focused. I was carrying the weight of the night, not just running through it.
Now, finally off-duty, the heaviness still sits in my bones. But so does a strange kind of pride. Not the loud, boastful kind—more the quiet, private knowledge that I have done right by my patients, and that I have not let the rush make me careless, nor the weight make me unkind.
If you’ve ever been in a season—whether in work, family, or life—where the demands seem to find you more than anyone else, I invite you to remember this: perhaps it’s not bad luck. Perhaps it’s a testament to your capacity. To the fact that you’ve been entrusted with more because you have already proven you can carry it.
And while you reflect on that, I leave you with a song that carries the same spirit. For me, it’s “The Nights” by Avicii. There’s something about its energy—its mix of grit and hope—that feels like a hand on the shoulder saying, “You’ve got this.” Play it loud. Let it remind you that even in the busiest, heaviest hours, you are more than the weight you carry. You are the strength that carries it.
Anj ❤
superanjventures 
Leave a comment