Stress coming from happy days after a siege of dark ones brings one of life’s peculiarities. Difficult adjustments often accompany change even when it is for the better. As a military wife, it took me by surprise that the return of a military spouse from a “short tour” (usually a year) could be stressful to families. Sometimes women, who had never had control of such things as finances and decision-making until the year their husband was overseas, had trouble giving up the independence that had been forced by his absence. Husbands wanted down time before home responsibilities were dumped back in their laps by wives who were tired of carrying the load. The problems came in reverse fashion if the wife was the military member. Children had to figure out new family dynamics. Many military families had more trouble with that adjustment than with the separation.
I remember our biggest “return home” adjustment when Al came back from his tour in Korea. He had left with one four-year-old and a baby on the way and returned to two children. Murray had asked me for permission all year when he wanted to do something and did not recall that Al could answer those “May I?’ questions as well. He walked past Al to get permission from me. Our first sit-down conference gave clear instructions that the first parent he saw got the question. Since he was a clever five-year-old by now, he figured out pretty quickly that if he didn’t like that answer, he asked the other parent. This brought us to the second sit-down conference which spelled out clearly that if he didn’t like the first answer he got and even went to a second parent for a different answer, he got punished.
I’ve thought about adjustment to good things as we begin to come away from this pandemic. I think there are some important questions to be considered. It may be good to look and see what has come out of this hard time that we want to keep. Oddly, good things have turned up. For instance, Zoom opened some doors to participate in events too far away or too expensive to attend under normal circumstances. Members of my small biweekly Zoom critique group have afforded inspiration and writing challenges and have become close friends. I plan to keep both of these at least in some measure.
A second consideration may be to think about which things that went by the wayside or got lost in the pandemic that need to stay dropped. I have some of these on my activities buffet deliberating about whether they need to return to my plate.
Best of all, what have I been anticipating that is now a possibility?
· a long overdue visit, cancelled at the beginning of Covid from my Arizona son’s family
· surely church choir will come again
· freedom to attend meets and cheer on an eight-year-old grandson who has become a competitive swimmer
· a run-in stop to get a chocolate glazed donut
· the list goes on as I am sure yours does, too, with items big and little
Happy days are here again. Let’s adjust!