A Traveler's Nemesis: Jetlag

Thanks to my dear friend, Jetlag, day is officially night and vice versa. So while it's 3:43am and sleep is nowhere in sight I feel I might as well write a little. When I wrote last time I said that I felt like I was waiting for a real shock that had yet to hit...well today it hit. While it probably doesn't help that my sleep pattern is beyond messed up, I feel so disoriented and so out of place here in California. Also, my sister is away this weekend which may also contribute because I'm alone in her bedroom in her apartment with her roommates. This is difficult for me to explain because I don't want to come across as if I'm not looking forward to returning home in a week and a half, but I just really miss Thailand right now. I'm still talking to all my friends from there and going through pictures and answering questions in a way that might make others understand what it was like there as well as trying to process the whole experience myself. I realize I don't have to accomplish that in the two or three days since I've left, but I am so wrapped around those memories that whenever someone talks to me about going home I want to tell them that they're mistaken, I'm not going home soon, I've just left it. I feel so torn in the directions of Maine, where I'm headed, and Thailand, where I've been, that I feel like I'm nowhere at all at the moment. I'm turning my head from side to side across the globe; what direction should I be facing in?

Whenever I do sleep I dream of Thailand. It's more of playing back memories than actually dreaming. I lay in bed today in an unmotivated heap and rose only to go through photos of the past two months. I haven't even changed my travel clock to the correct time zone yet because I like knowing what time it is there so I might imagine what's going on at the shelter. I guess I just don't want to make it a past event yet; I loved what it felt like to be there. There were so many times I'd be riding around with someone, just looking up or out, and begin thinking, "I love..." and have no need to attempt to finish the sentence because the love wasn't attached to one specific piece of the moment but everything about where I was and who I was and what I was doing right then in that beautiful, beautiful place. Without a doubt there were days when I'd be fed up with someone or something but those were overall the most brilliant two months. 

It's not that I'm not looking forward to going home. I'm just not able to look forward to it right now because I'm still so caught up in where I just was. Whenever I try to explain this feeling to anyone I meet the responses of, "You'll be fine;" "You'll travel again and fall in love with other places;" "But isn't it nice how you have so many contacts around the world now?" All are true and I'm aware of each, but right now I would trade this comfortable bed, flushing toilet, and hot shower for an immeasurably sweaty day walking dogs along the beach, cuddling with my cat, Julia, and burning my mouth on spicy Thai food with my friends at dinner. It should be noted that I am extremely jetlagged.