Jetlag

Here I am back in beautiful Metz but I cannot seem to shake my jetlag. I have only been back three days but it as if time has stopped: Minutes are hours, hours seem like days, evening is morning, night is afternoon. This brings a full new dimension to my floating in France. Each time I travel it's a bit worse. I do not travel well.

I thought I had a handle on it this time. Knowing myself, the suitcase was impressively packed well in advance, and I actually slept well the night before the trip. Perhaps that was the problem, now that I think of it. Flights from America to Europe are eight hours long, leave in mid to late afternoon, and arrive around 6 am the next morning (well, that's really midnight American time). The fact I was well rested meant I could not sleep at all on the plane and watched all three featured movies back to back. Maybe I should have preformed my normal nuit blanche ritual of crazily throwing everything together at the last minute, going online to check in and register beforehand, thinking what to remember and forgetting how to think. Instead, the inevitable trip anxiety, nervousness, thoughts of the trip and the after-trip and the after-after-trip, compounded with the subtly imposed family guilt of leaving home once again for yet another untimely French adventure (most people believe I am on permanent holiday in Europe. If it were true!) came late. Adrenaline is not necessary for a transatlantic trip! I should have boarded that airplane so worn out that I could have slept anywhere. Mea culpa.

The weekend I have spent sleeping ,a few hours in a row, followed by great spurts of energy and then a gradual letdown lasting but a few hours, and then more sleep. I eat whatever I find, whenever I can and however I want. I wonder if experts have carried out research on the psychological effects of jetlag. I feel both elated and depressed my trip home is over. I'm optimistic for 2011 yet I feel aloof from the world. I'm also starving but don't wish to eat anything. Besides that, I sleep without being tired. C'est grave! Hopefully by tomorrow the feeling will subside and I will have frenchiflown back to normal. Unfortunately, I'll have a long day of work ahead... Ugh

Now it is 11pm and I'm feeling fit after my long 4-hour afternoon nap and my recent dinner. No way for me to consider winding down and 8am comes ever so early. Maybe I'll attack that suitcase I still haven't unpacked.