It’s been two days since I’ve been back at work, and I actually feel quite comfortable and fine. I was wondering how much jet lag I would feel given that there’s a 9.5-hour time difference between New York and India, but I somehow managed to still wake up in time for my morning workout, shower, and get ready for work at the usual times I do this during the work week during the last two mornings. The worst thing that has happened was that this morning, I woke up at 3am and wasn’t able to fall back into a fully deep sleep, then woke up at 6:45am to go to the gym, but that was really it. I even made cold brew coffee and had it this morning just in case I’d get sleepy at work, but the sleepiness never seemed to come.

One funny thing that has repeatedly happened during the last four years of summer Asia travel is that at some point during the return week in New York, I will wake up in the middle of the night and think we are still in the destination we were in, whether it was Japan in 2015, Korea in 2016, Taiwan in 2017, or now India this year, and then be a little bewildered when I blink my eyes a few times and realize that I’m in my own bed, back in my own room, in our own apartment here in New York. I’m not sure if it is a good feeling or a neutral one.