Adjusting back to LA time is generally very easy for this traveler.
This time, it was the hardest thing in the world. I didn’t sleep very well on the plane, I guess, and after arriving at LAX at 1.40pm on a Saturday (which happened to be 2 hours before I left Taipei, their time) I went to a friend’s birthday party. It was great to go and do that (although, I certainly didn’t need any more food from the Far East, Cantonese is different from what I was eating, though, but not different enough!) but when I returned home to a friend’s house, I was exhausted but could not sleep, to save my life! Eventually I fell asleep and then I woke up too early the next day, refreshed (or so I thought). I went to church and was suddenly very tired. I woke up in the middle of the day, to drive to Kuan’s, where I napped before my Starbucks shift.
My manager had asked me if I could work on the 9th, the day after I returned to LA and I said, “well, I can be HERE, but I don’t know how PRESENT I’ll be.” And she scheduled me. The three closers that day were all kind of out of it (me in the lead, I think) and I had to be back there too early the next day. I ended up with the beginnings of a cold. I tried to go to sleep very early the next night, and succeeded - falling asleep during FINDING NEMO and then going to bed around 8.30pm. I hadn’t shaken the cold, though, and find myself still trying to fight it, and it’s one week after I returned.
On the Monday after I returned, my common response to people at work when they said I looked out of it was, “I am out of it, I’m still someplace over the Pacific. I just returned from Taiwan and haven’t readjusted yet.” Which was completely true - it’s what I felt like. And I could not figure out where I was!
The trip itself was very life-giving, in asking me to really live out my faith in all parts of my life, but the return to LA was rough… here’s to hoping that my next halfway-around-the-world-trip isn’t nearly as bad on the return (that’ll be to Russia for those keeping track at home, in August).
Happy Easter to Everyone! Enjoy the day. If you believe or not, God Grant You Peace.
Diane Kenney
Okay —- you left yourself wide open for this one from me! Sorry. “Living out my my faith in all parts of my life.” And what does that mean at this moment? (Including….uh…. the June adventure to G.A. that evidently you don’t consider “travel”?)
Well, okay, let me clarify - international travel… I will also have to go to Seattle to see my familia at some point. Otherwise I might be cut off!
But, I mean that in this country, we can choose to be secular or not, depending on who we are around, if we choose to modify it as such. In Taiwan, they didn’t (and don’t) do that. They are Taiwanese Christians, and identify as such in all they do. Maybe I’m not currently able to figure out what I mean, but it’ll come…
