I am sitting in the breakroom at 02:14 AM, staring at a cup of coffee that has a film on top of it thick enough to write my name in. I’ve been a nurse for thirty-two years, and before that, I spent six years in the Army as a medic, and you’d think I’d know how to take care of a basic human machine by now. But here I am, sixty-one years old, and I’m literally disappearing. I weighed myself on the bariatric scale in Hallway B tonight just to see the damage. 164 pounds. I haven't been that light since I was a nineteen-year-old kid at Fort Bragg getting yelled at by a drill sergeant with a neck like a bull. I’ve lost exactly nine pounds since this rotation started twelve days ago. My scrubs are starting to look like I borrowed them from a much larger, more successful man, and honestly, the way they hang off my shoulders is a joke. I look like a skeleton wrapped in blue polyester. The worst part isn't the hunger. It’s the fact that I’ve started to forget what hunger feels like. I went fourteen hours today without putting a single thing in my mouth besides lukewarm water from the fountain near the psych ward. I had this plan to eat the turkey sandwich Diane packed for me—it’s in a specific green Tupperware container with a cracked lid—but every time I reached for the fridge handle, a light would go off, or a monitor would start chirping, or some poor soul in Room 412 would start calling for help. You get into this rhythm where the MISSION is everything. It’s that old military brain. You don't eat until the objective is secured, but in a public hospital like this, the objective is never secured. People just keep coming. They come in at 3 AM with broken ribs and broken lives and you just keep marching because that’s what a man does. I went home this morning at 07:45 and Diane was in the kitchen making toast. She looked at me—really looked at me—and asked if I was okay. She said I looked "grey." I just gave her that smile I’ve been practicing for forty years and told her the cafeteria had a great breakfast burrito and I was stuffed. Lying to her is becoming as easy as checking a pulse. It’s a reflex. I told her I was just tired because the shift was "busy but manageable." I didn't tell her that I spent twenty minutes in the supply closet just leaning my forehead against the cool metal of the shelving because my legs felt like they were made of wet cardboard. I didn't tell her that I forgot to eat because I was too busy holding a basin for a kid who’d been in a car wreck while his mother screamed in the hallway. I just told her I was fine and went to bed with my stomach cramping so hard it felt like a fist was grabbing my spine. I’m supposed to be the one who has it all figured out. I’m the "senior" staff. The young nurses, these kids who aren't even twenty-five yet, they look at me like I’m some kind of mountain that can't be moved. They see the stripes on my sleeve, figuratively speaking, and they think I’m invincible. I even make fun of them sometimes—tell them they need to "toughen up" or "embrace the suck" when they complain about a missed break. It’s a defense mechanism, I guess. If I can make a joke out of it, then I don't have to admit that my hands were shaking while I was drawing blood at midnight. I make myself the butt of the joke so nobody looks too closely at the fact that I’m vibrating with exhaustion. I’m the "old pro" who doesn't need a lunch break. What a load of CRAP. I keep thinking about legacy. Is this it? Is my whole life just going to be a series of twelve-hour blocks where I gave everything to strangers and left nothing for the woman who actually loves me? I’ve spent more time looking at heart rate monitors than I have looking at my own wife’s face lately. I’m so close to retirement—just another couple of years—but I’m terrified I won't make it there in one piece. Or worse, I’ll get there and I’ll be an empty husk of a human being who forgot how to exist without a clipboard in his hand. I feel like I’m committing a crime every time I tell Diane I’m "fine." It’s a betrayal of the highest order, but I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to be a civilian. I don't know how to say "I’m hurting" without feeling like I’m failing the unit. Tonight was particularly bad. There was a moment around 11:30 PM where I actually forgot my own middle name for a second while I was filling out a chart. I just sat there staring at the line on the paper. I could see the clock ticking—11:31, 11:32—and I was just blank. It eventually came back to me—it's Edward, after my grandfather—but that thirty-second gap scared the HELL out of me. I played it off, of course. One of the LPNs asked if I was alright and I just told her I was "contemplating the mysteries of the universe" and made some crack about getting old. She laughed. Everyone always laughs. They think I’m a riot. I’m looking at my reflection in the dark window of the breakroom and I don't recognize the guy looking back. He’s got deep bags under his eyes and his neck is too thin for his collar. I should go get that turkey sandwich. I should eat it and then call Diane and tell her I’m struggling. But the pager on my hip just buzzed. 02:28 AM. Someone in the ER needs a hand with a difficult intubation. I can feel the adrenaline hitting my system again, that familiar old drug that masks the hunger and the shame. I’ll just go do this one thing, and then I’ll eat. That’s what I tell myself every night. It’s always just "one more thing" until the sun comes up and I have to go home and lie to the person I love most in the world again. I’m a coward who looks like a hero, and God, I am so, so tired.