The Aftermath.

I was reading a rather interesting book (Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, if anybody's interested)where the main character mentioned a theory on jet lag. The theory was that you had moved so quickly your soul could not keep up, and the jet lag was your body operating as best it could until it got there.
That is entirely what I feel like right now. Which is odd, because I don't recall feeling this way in Japan. We got off the plane, crashed the first night, then were up and about exploring our first day. I don't recall feeling dazed, or even that tired. Perhaps the sheer excitement and different-ness of the place kept us going on a thin silver stream of adrenaline and forced our souls to hurry to us, as we wouldn't wait on them to observe and inspect the new world we were in.
It's almost as if I'm in shock, observing what's going on around me, recognizing those items I've come in contact with before, but having no attachment to them. I arrived home, was happy to be within 4 walls, but didn't feel the wave of relief I'd quite expected upon getting there aside from "travel is over". The couch was just a couch and it was nice to sit upon, yes... but it didn't recall all the nights we spent watching movies on it, or the homework I'd gotten frustrated over on it. It was just furniture, with a pink octopus pillow that I knew from experience was comfortable. And that's about how logical all my observations have been. For a person like me who is wickedly sentimental and has a pattern and a link-up for everything in her life, it would appear down right disconcerting. Except that I'm still being logical about it, so my thoughts keep telling me "wait and see, possibly it's just the time change, maybe you're back to normal in a few days."
Only certain foods have taste. I was starving and wanted a good, American cheeseburger. We'd had approximations of them in Japan but they were surprisingly flavorless. I attributed that to things being cooked in soybean oil instead of what we were used to, but upon trying a Whopper I realized that the usual sensation and flavor of the food just wasn't there. So far only fruit really seems to have a flavor. Downright unnerving.
What I've noted the most, though, is that I seem to have forgotten what I used to do. I got home, I finally had access to all of my art supplies... and all the ideas that were bumping about in my head during the trip, all of the things that had been put on hold until we got back, suddenly... rattled out my ear and away. I can barely think of a one. I know I have knitting projects and crochet projects somewhere, I only faintly remember what they are and where I left them.
I remembered my desire to paint with water colors and specifically to do a sea turtle in them thanks to all the turtles we'd seen at the aquarium on Okinawa. Seeing as I couldn't sleep Monday morning I went in to the room where my supplies are stored and got to work laying down base color. But I keep forgetting to go back to it, so I'm feeling very silly.
Sleep hits around 8 pm with vicious strength and there's just no getting away from it. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I was asleep by 8. I'm going to try to reset the clock tonight with coffee and some moving around.
In fact, I'm not going to wait. I'm going to start chugging coffee right now (sadly, the poorly made American kind, not the Japanese kind where they put more importance in the quality than the quantity) and build up a cumulative effect, see if it'll help reset me, refire my brain synapses.