Every time my husband comes home from an absence -- whether it be one month or nine -- I am astounded by how much things change while he is gone. Babies get bigger. Children learn new skills. I discover new strength within myself that I previously could not even fathom.
Time does not hold still during military absence. Change is inevitable. That's why reintegration is so hard. Because when he comes home he expects things to have waited on him. But they couldn't. And I expect him to fall right into sync with where we are. But he can't.
We both want everything to be the same as it was. But it isn't.
Solution? We both need to expect and welcome change.
That's why a quote in this month's Real Simple jumped at me.
"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." -- L.P. Hartley.
Instead of longing for how we felt, acted and lived in the past -- before TDY, before deployment, before the "new normal," we must view the past as a foreign land.
We are in the now. Now is a different place. Now is a brave new world. And it's OK for it to be different. It's OK for there to be change.
