On Saturday evening, we received a frustrating notification that our flight on Sunday morning had been cancelled. Because we were booked on two separate bookings since my flight was paid for by my work, we also got placed on two separate flights to go back to New York, which was not good for many reasons, but especially because Kaia would be with us. So I called American Airlines and eventually changed both of our flights to be on business back to New York on a redeye flight Sunday night, which would return Monday morning. The last time I’d been on a redeye was when I had to come back to New York for Chris’s citizenship ceremony in 2018, and I felt miserable when I landed and for a few days after. It’s funny how our bodies change: I used to take red-eyes regularly through college to come back to Boston, as well as in my early to mid-twenties, and I’d always hit the ground running and never even needed to nap when I got back. Well, this time was very different: I’m 36 years old now (which means I have aged and my body cannot handle that type of travel anymore regularly), plus I’m traveling with an infant in lap, so a red-eye flight has a very different meaning now. Plus, everyone knows that a red-eye flight from California to New York is too short to sleep properly, even when you do have the privilege of a lay-flat bed in business class. Even privilege and money cannot get you the perfect red-eye flight back.

We got to the airport early so that we could get comfortable, get Kaia fed and settled to sleep as soon as possible, and so I could pump a little earlier so I would not need to pump in flight. And while she did fuss initially when we boarded the plane, mainly because of the sounds and bright lights, she did amazingly well throughout the flight. She slept soundly on top of me… which is good because at least one of us slept well. While I love having her on me, it made it impossible for me to sleep. I really just had my eyes closed the whole time. We came back early this morning and got back to the apartment relatively quickly, but I was so beat when we got back. I ended up having to take a nap in the afternoon just for a little rest. It still wasn’t enough, though.

It’s like now, my body is recovering from the red-eye travel, while my mind is recovering from being with my parents in their house of terror. So all of me needs recovery time now, which will likely take a few days at least.