Day 281 (March 29): Jet Lag Sucks
Exactly one week ago, not accounting for time zones, I was at this very keyboard, in a different kitchen, in a different country, facing a very different set of challenges. Then, it was the deep insanity of booking flights when airports were closing and airlines were in the process of cutting 90% of their routes with nearly no notice. Then, the daily temperature range was 80-95 degrees (F). Then, I was intimidated by the intensity of the government's approach to social distancing as well as the degree of popular compliance.
Now, it's a bizarre game of figuring out which online delivery services will bring me food from which restaurants and whether or not my children will eat it. (Okay, that last bit is a near constant, regardless of continent.) Now, the temperature range is 40-55 degrees (F). Now, I'm terrified by the modesty of the government's approach and the frightening lack of concern shown in my community.
But the worst thing that is going on is jet lag. This is our sixth night in our home since jetting home a week ago. There has not yet been a good night. There hasn't even been a bad night. They've all been awful.
If there is a "usual" it's something like this: we eat dinner sometime between 5 and 6 and kids start falling asleep at 6 and are all snoring by 7:30. One of the kids appears bedside around 2am to announce that they've had a bad dream, they want breakfast, they're bored or all of the above. By the time that child is subdued and the subduing adult has their head back on pillow, it's usually around 3. Other kids start waking up around 5:30, sometimes a bit earlier but never with a possibility of going back to sleep.
The first few days, we tolerated naps. We tried to facilitate them at times that would cause the least trouble but we didn't do very well at that. Ali is the most likely to be off schedule and she's desperate for sleep in the late afternoon. One day we simply couldn't stop her so she was probably asleep for good at 5pm. Guess who was up at 2?
We've been extremely lenient with many of our rules. Most mornings, they're allowed to get their tablets and watch whatever they want (options are limited and acceptable) until breakfast, sometimes longer. Afterall, the most peaceful times this week have been when four kids have their headphones on and we're all in separate rooms. ("Separate Rooms" is a luxury we've been missing for nine months.)
One day we went for a drive in the early afternoon, knowing the kids would fall asleep but hoping that an early afternoon nap would be more productive than problematic. Probably wrong. They napped but the evening wasn't any easier. Neither was the overnight.
Saturday night was especially frustrating. Henry was up at 2. He rejected my advice about falling back asleep. He wanted to get up, he said. He wanted his tablet. I was tired and frustrated but I knew.- having failed this test many, many times over recent weeks, that I couldn't impose my will on his. So I tried the "kill him with love" approach and it worked. He was calm by 2:30 and asleep a bit before 3. I found this experience mentally exhausting and emotionally draining but, ironically, it left me wide awake.
Maybe I had a surge of adreneline when he and I started to "fight." Maybe something similar flowed when I struggled to get control of my heated emotions, to grapple with him calmly. Regardless, at 3am I was sitting in front of the fireplace. I was still there, trying to articulate something on the laptop, when Ali appeared a bit before 4:00. I got her to lay next to me and doze while I continued to write. Then Cate showed up around 4:30 with a "What's up guys? Are we having a party?" chirp. I tried to doze-in-front-of-fire thing with Cate but she was having none of it. It got ugly (for me) when Ali got inspired by Cate's attitude. So they got a movie on the TV in the basement.
On one hand, each day is at least a little bit better than the last. It's definitely getting easier to push past 5 and on to 6 and even 7. It's more likely that they will sleep until 6, or at least 5. On the other hand, they are spending most of the hours of the day as zombies watching their tablets or as zombies terrorizing the house that our domicile was becoming uninhabitable due to the mess. Thank goodness for social distancing: nobody can enter our house and see what's happened to it.
Today, between downpours, I thought I'd take the kids outside to get some fresh air and move their bodies. By the time we got back, after a loop of just over a mile, two kids were crying and everybody wished we had never gone. For dinner, Elise found us a fresh chicken pot pie from a terrific bakery; it smelled and tasted like Thanksgiving dinner but with zero effort. Nevertheless, three kids rejected it and Elise left the table in despair.
I know jet lag is supposed to last one day for every hour of time difference. I don't know whether to count it as 15 hours or 9 hours but it's clearly going to take a few more days. Since Elise reminds me to think of three reasons for gratitude whenever I'm this upset, I'll say that at least there is no school or work so we can be miserable and fucked up without affecting or imposing on anybody else. So there's that.
We've talked to travel comrades who say they are suffering the same. We've heard from friends who say that returning from Singapore was the worst jet lag ever. Maybe it's because of the 15 s. 9 confusion! As much as we know it will be better and in not too long, right now it feels terrible.
And it makes everything seem worse. We're struggling with the emotions of aborting our trip. We're dealing with weird logistical issues, like being unable (or unwilling) to leave the house out of concern that we were exposed to the virus during our trip home. It's cold and rainy here and we thought we'd be in summer for another 5 or 6 months. In so many ways, whatever it is, it's not what we want.
We did have one epiphany: if our fantasy comes true, in which this disease evaporates, borders open and international flights resume, we don't want to go to many of our previously-imminent destinations because we'd have to cross too many time zones to get there!
Finally, jet lag is not photogenic and we've had enough sense not to take pictures of ourselves in this condition so there's nothing to show. But I did go for a hike yesterday, where I was reminded of how much I love and missed the color green.
Now, it's a bizarre game of figuring out which online delivery services will bring me food from which restaurants and whether or not my children will eat it. (Okay, that last bit is a near constant, regardless of continent.) Now, the temperature range is 40-55 degrees (F). Now, I'm terrified by the modesty of the government's approach and the frightening lack of concern shown in my community.
But the worst thing that is going on is jet lag. This is our sixth night in our home since jetting home a week ago. There has not yet been a good night. There hasn't even been a bad night. They've all been awful.
If there is a "usual" it's something like this: we eat dinner sometime between 5 and 6 and kids start falling asleep at 6 and are all snoring by 7:30. One of the kids appears bedside around 2am to announce that they've had a bad dream, they want breakfast, they're bored or all of the above. By the time that child is subdued and the subduing adult has their head back on pillow, it's usually around 3. Other kids start waking up around 5:30, sometimes a bit earlier but never with a possibility of going back to sleep.
The first few days, we tolerated naps. We tried to facilitate them at times that would cause the least trouble but we didn't do very well at that. Ali is the most likely to be off schedule and she's desperate for sleep in the late afternoon. One day we simply couldn't stop her so she was probably asleep for good at 5pm. Guess who was up at 2?
We've been extremely lenient with many of our rules. Most mornings, they're allowed to get their tablets and watch whatever they want (options are limited and acceptable) until breakfast, sometimes longer. Afterall, the most peaceful times this week have been when four kids have their headphones on and we're all in separate rooms. ("Separate Rooms" is a luxury we've been missing for nine months.)
One day we went for a drive in the early afternoon, knowing the kids would fall asleep but hoping that an early afternoon nap would be more productive than problematic. Probably wrong. They napped but the evening wasn't any easier. Neither was the overnight.
Saturday night was especially frustrating. Henry was up at 2. He rejected my advice about falling back asleep. He wanted to get up, he said. He wanted his tablet. I was tired and frustrated but I knew.- having failed this test many, many times over recent weeks, that I couldn't impose my will on his. So I tried the "kill him with love" approach and it worked. He was calm by 2:30 and asleep a bit before 3. I found this experience mentally exhausting and emotionally draining but, ironically, it left me wide awake.
Maybe I had a surge of adreneline when he and I started to "fight." Maybe something similar flowed when I struggled to get control of my heated emotions, to grapple with him calmly. Regardless, at 3am I was sitting in front of the fireplace. I was still there, trying to articulate something on the laptop, when Ali appeared a bit before 4:00. I got her to lay next to me and doze while I continued to write. Then Cate showed up around 4:30 with a "What's up guys? Are we having a party?" chirp. I tried to doze-in-front-of-fire thing with Cate but she was having none of it. It got ugly (for me) when Ali got inspired by Cate's attitude. So they got a movie on the TV in the basement.
On one hand, each day is at least a little bit better than the last. It's definitely getting easier to push past 5 and on to 6 and even 7. It's more likely that they will sleep until 6, or at least 5. On the other hand, they are spending most of the hours of the day as zombies watching their tablets or as zombies terrorizing the house that our domicile was becoming uninhabitable due to the mess. Thank goodness for social distancing: nobody can enter our house and see what's happened to it.
Today, between downpours, I thought I'd take the kids outside to get some fresh air and move their bodies. By the time we got back, after a loop of just over a mile, two kids were crying and everybody wished we had never gone. For dinner, Elise found us a fresh chicken pot pie from a terrific bakery; it smelled and tasted like Thanksgiving dinner but with zero effort. Nevertheless, three kids rejected it and Elise left the table in despair.
I know jet lag is supposed to last one day for every hour of time difference. I don't know whether to count it as 15 hours or 9 hours but it's clearly going to take a few more days. Since Elise reminds me to think of three reasons for gratitude whenever I'm this upset, I'll say that at least there is no school or work so we can be miserable and fucked up without affecting or imposing on anybody else. So there's that.
We've talked to travel comrades who say they are suffering the same. We've heard from friends who say that returning from Singapore was the worst jet lag ever. Maybe it's because of the 15 s. 9 confusion! As much as we know it will be better and in not too long, right now it feels terrible.
And it makes everything seem worse. We're struggling with the emotions of aborting our trip. We're dealing with weird logistical issues, like being unable (or unwilling) to leave the house out of concern that we were exposed to the virus during our trip home. It's cold and rainy here and we thought we'd be in summer for another 5 or 6 months. In so many ways, whatever it is, it's not what we want.
We did have one epiphany: if our fantasy comes true, in which this disease evaporates, borders open and international flights resume, we don't want to go to many of our previously-imminent destinations because we'd have to cross too many time zones to get there!
Finally, jet lag is not photogenic and we've had enough sense not to take pictures of ourselves in this condition so there's nothing to show. But I did go for a hike yesterday, where I was reminded of how much I love and missed the color green.
 |
| The Wildwood Trail, in Portland's Forest Park. Very good for social distancing! |
Comments
Post a Comment