Reintegration
Remember the saying about how long it takes to get over a break up? What is it, something like divide the time you were together in two? So, if you were dating for a year, it should take about six months to get over the person.
Wouldn’t it be nice if life worked that way? Well, realistically, anyone who has been through a bad break up knows that these equations just don’t work.
What if we applied the same equation to a deployment? It should have taken three months for things to be back to normal after my wife got home, right? Not so much.
It’s funny, you know. People talk about the “new normal” after a deployment. Military families are taught about the adjustments and sacrifices that everyone makes during a deployment. We talk about how to make that “reintegration period” smoother.
Even with my counseling background and knowledge about how people grow and change over time, I can’t say that I was fully prepared for the changes we’ve been through since my wife deployed. Yes, it’s true that there is some readjustment back to daily life. Things like walking the dogs, taking out the trash, and cooking are all a bit different. Yes, that is a change that happens during a deployment. But the reality is that this deployment changed each of us – and it changed “us.”
I consider myself a pretty patient person. I am a good listener, and I take the time to support the people I love. But my level of patience deteriorated while Sue was deployed. It became a chore for me to listen to people complain about mundane things. Didn’t they know that I was worried about the love of my life being hurt or killed? How could they complain about traffic or have a long, deep conversation about reality T.V.? Some of that has subsided since she came home, but some of it has not. And perhaps the hardest part of that for me is that I was completely unaware it was happening. I didn’t realize that my patience was waning and my anger was rising.
Susan has had trouble adjusting home with regard to patience as well. It’s difficult to come home and have people assume that things are just going to go back to normal. It’s challenging to go back to a civilian desk job after your mind and body have been going 100 m.p.h. for so long. It’s hard to trust the people at your civilian job to have your back, the way your military comrades do, when in all reality they often don’t. It’s hard to have patience with people as they ask awkward questions about your deployment or, perhaps even more difficult, when they don’t.
It has been four months since Susan got home from her deployment. We are still in the “reintegration phase.” Sometimes I wonder what things will look like down the road. Will I ever fully regain my patience? Will she readjust to work? Will the people around us ever fully understand what we’ve been through?
I’m unsure of many of those answers. What I am sure of, though, is that I am thankful to have a different perspective when I am stuck in traffic or get the wrong coffee in my order – this deployment helped with that. I am sure that the level of connection and camaraderie that Susan felt during her deployment is possible in the civilian world, if only we have people like her to help make it so. And, finally, I am sure that the people in our life who love and care about us just want to understand. They want to know how we got through such a challenging time, and how we continue to learn and grow from it.
To be honest, I want to understand too.
- Freedom and Responsibility - March 8, 2013
- Reintegration - March 8, 2013
- Reintegration - March 8, 2013
