The Trauma of Time Traveling

We did it again. For the second time in our lives, our family time traveled.  And my 8-year-old son hated the idea.  When I asked him why he hated the idea of time traveling, he said, “It’s traumatic.” I didn’t understand why he would say that. I thought that he would think time traveling was cool.

SFOairportclock

When we arrived at the San Francisco Airport yesterday, I saw a clock that said the local time was 7:35pm.  I told my son and daughter, “Look, it’s now 7:35pm, March 12, 2014 and we’re here.  At this exact time and day, but ‘yesterday,’ we were still in our house in Manila, getting ready to leave for the Manila airport.” My son made that exasperated look again. I still couldn’t understand why.

Just a few hours ago, my son opted to stay home with his cousins for the day while my husband, our daughter and I went shopping. When we went back to see him, we found out that he didn’t nap at all even though he was jet lagged. He would say that he liked jet lag, because without any effort he would be awake at night (now that idea he found cool).  Not long after, he couldn’t fight his jet lag and he fell asleep.  It was a short and fitful sleep, and he woke up kicking and crying. I tried holding him and gently talking to him, but he couldn’t be consoled. I felt so bad for him, just like I did when he was a toddler and would be inconsolably kicking and crying out of fatigue and frustration.

After about fifteen or so minutes, he stopped and asked, “What happened?” It turned out that he was half-asleep and unaware of his crying fit. Suddenly, he was all done and asking to have his share of the cheese pizza. For now, the jet lag monster is gone.

I’m not sure if this is what my son had meant, but now I understand how time traveling can be traumatic. I will try to do a better job of trying to ease such “trauma,” starting with a more relaxed vacation day tomorrow.

(Published on March 14, 12:25AM, PDT)

Leave a Reply