If there’s one thing that fits the definition of “first world problem”, it would be jet lag.
I remember the first time I experienced it, as a child. Our whole family had just emigrated to New Zealand from England, and all seven of us used to wake up around 3 am and sit around waiting for everyone else in the house to wake up, staring at the darkness out the window. I remember asking my auntie, at whose capacious house we were staying, why we weren’t all sleepy in the daytime? She suggested it was because as children, we wouldn’t get sleepy if the sun was shining. Certainly as an adult, daytime somnolence is much harder to avoid succumbing to. One good thing about the death of the Queen, apart from, I suppose, Charlie getting his moment in the sun, is that this impromptu extra STAT holiday gives me another day to recover.
We arrived back in Wellington at 9 am on Saturday, and I’d been invited to a party that night. I thought I’d be too tired to attend, and of course always slightly relieved to have a good excuse to cry off any social engagements. But actually, when the evening rolled around, I didn’t feel too bad, so I put on my glad rags and set off. Every hour or so, I thought I’d leave, but then I’d spot someone else I knew that I wanted to catch up with, or there’d be a speech or something, and I ended up staying. Around ten, I went to get my coat, but then someone bought me a drink, and then people started dancing. In the end, I was one of the last to leave, and didn’t get home until after three. Everyone kept saying I was doing really well to still be up, but actually I felt more wide awake than I had for most of the day. Of course, in Irish time, 3 am was 2 in the afternoon, a perfectly normal time to be out and about. But it was like jet lag was my superpower.