These Jets Are Lagged

"I used to be better at jet lag." I've been saying this to anyone who asks about my Christmas holiday in Florida. I've rocked back and forth between the US and Germany since university, and it's true. I could handle it. I could handle it better than most of my peers. I remember how on one summer trip to Germany, so many of my pitiful cohorts slouched like war refugees on Deutsche Bahn while I stoically willed wakefulness and sleep at their proper time upon my compliant body. Several days later, I was chipper as a springtime squirrel while others were still falling asleep before dessert.

Not anymore. I can will nothing. Instead my hands, feet, and head are tethered to a timezone six hours away, watching football, avoiding public transportation, and eating large, fatty meals just before bed. The sun, wintery and distant as it is now, has no effect on me. It sits on the horizon, I sit in my living room, and we ignore each other like bored roommates. I sleep at my body's command. This could be mid-sentence in a conversation with my mother-in-law, or while chewing a piece of toast, or while typing something up so that my head hits the keyboard like this: 8iuy65rfd

What changed? Well, two things.

First, my body is aging. Now, whenever I say this, anyone older than me points out that I ain't seen nothin' yet. And that's true. I'm not old; I'm not even middle aged. I will be some day, Lord willing, but not yet. Nonetheless, I'm no longer that cock-sure traveling college student. There are things I could do a decade ago that my aging body just won't play anymore:

Me: "I'm going to sleep in."
Aging body: "This is your 7:00 wake-up call!"
Me: "That chili-cheese dog looks delicious! I'm going to eat it."
Aging body: "Of course you are, you contemptuous glutton. And for the next few days, you're going to feel as if someone poured cement in your intestines."
Me: "I'm going to run ten kilometers!"
Aging body: "And your joints are going to HATE you."
Me: "I'll put some ice on it. It'll be fine!"
Aging body: "...in about three weeks."
Me: "Jet lag doesn't phase this traveler! I'm not going to fall asleep!
Aging body: "Zzzzzzzzz"

I hear it's only downhill from here.

But age isn't the only reason I'm suddenly a jet lag failure. After all, my dad beat jet lag well into middle age with the right combination of tablets, wine, and airline pasta (WARNING: Do not attempt without first consulting your physician - especially the airline pasta part). The other reason is, of course, a small child.

Yes, for the past four years I've been traveling with a carry-on that I can't stow in the overhead compartment. No traveling parents, no airplane sleep for you. You are there to feed, change, walk, and entertain the passenger capable of throwing herself into a temper tantrum somewhere over the Atlantic. And when you land, your schedule will not abide by actual sunshine, but by your little sunshine. And when you say, "we should go to sleep," she'll say "neither of us can sleep, so let's play princess ponies," and you will smile and neigh like playing princess ponies is what you've wanted to do every since you bought your plane tickets.

So, for the parents of young children, jet lag is not something to be willed away, but to be endured like recovery from surgery, slowly, until a week later, you notice yourself rising with the sun again.