Our Reintegration into the USA.

We’ve had a wildly successful but mind-numbingly exhausting first week of reintegration.  Coming home has been a lot like riding a bike again after many years; we remember how to do it but there are still many unfamiliar sensations and a strong likelihood of falling down before we get things right again.  Here are some of the things we faced this week along with some tips for others going through the reintegration process.

 

6 Phases of Our Reintegration into the USA.

 

Exhaustion.

We were awake for 24 hours during our journey home.  We woke up at 5am in our hotel in Schweinfurt, Germany to finish packing and stayed up throughout our entire journey (minus one cat nap for Mr. Meena on the plane) before finally going to sleep in a hotel in Virginia at 11pm EST / 5am in Germany.  While changing time zones is never easy, staying up for this long definitely made our exhaustion more intense and made it harder to recover physically (especially for me – as lack of sleep will worsen the effects of my chronic illness).

I was certain that jet lag would be easier to handle when going from Germany to the USA compared to the reverse journey, but now I’m not so sure.  Yes, it’s easier to force yourself to stay up later to adapt to a new time zone rather than force yourself to wake up earlier, but I’ve definitely slept less this past week than I did during our first week in Germany.  When we arrived in Germany last year I would have trouble falling asleep and then sleep in too late whereas after arriving in the USA I struggle to stay up late and then can’t stay asleep after 3 or 4am.  The sleep deprivation over the past week has felt severe and made things harder for us.

 

The consequences of exhaustion.

 

Photo by Jessica licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

All three of us got sick shortly after returning.  Mr. Meena had a bad cold, Koopa had an infection, and I had a cough as well as more intense than normal chronic pain levels.  We had trouble functioning, physically and cognitively, and we made some poor decisions as a result of being exhausted.  For example, on our first morning in our temporary apartment I wanted to know what brand of coffee cup I was holding and turned it over while it was half-full, spilling liquid all over the floor.  We also drove halfway to Mr. Meena’s sisters’ house to get my car without taking my new license plate – delaying our trip by an hour and a half.  Exhaustion is brutal – even more so when you have so many important things to take care of during reintegration.

 

Confusion and reverse culture shock.

Where are all the windmills?  Has everything always been this big in the USA?  Why am I so tired?  Why do people keep talking to me??

Strangers talking to us in an overfriendly manner was very shocking at first, despite the fact that we were expecting it.  For example, we were eating breakfast in a hotel on our first morning back in the States and were discussing the Clemson vs. Louisiana game from the previous evening quietly with each other.  An older gentleman chimed in about the game from another table and went on to tell us that he’d lived in Clemson for decades and lived in Germany for many years, including being stationed in a town (Wuerzburg) that was only half an hour away from ours!  Other encounters were less positive, however, such as people that interrupted our conversations with store clerks to chit chat and even a few clerks that talked so much we could hardly check out.  I’m really glad to be around friendly, outgoing people but it’s more obvious to me now that such friendliness can make life less efficient.

 

Constant problem solving.

When it seemed like everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, something else disrupted our plans.  We discovered that Mr. Meena’s cell phone was defective and doesn’t work on most US frequencies (we’d never used it in the US before, only in Germany), my car was unexpectedly moldy from storage and needed a new battery, our power went out – the list goes on.  And we were sick while dealing with all these problems.  Fortunately we were able to solve almost all of our problems and at least start figuring how to solve the rest of them.

 

The good news is that we felt very equipped to deal with such challenges after learning so much from living abroad and traveling frequently.  This week was much less intimidating because we faced such a variety of difficult situations last year.

 

Different reactions.

Mr. Meena has been very homesick for Germany while I’ve been overwhelmingly happy to be here and only experienced homesickness for my friends in Germany.  He has had a harder time adjusting to being back in the USA and that’s introduced a strange variance of emotions into our relationship.  While I know that I will (eventually) miss Germany a lot, I experienced huge relief in my stress and anxiety levels immediately upon returning home.

One big thing that we agreed on this week was that most of the things we missed from home turned out to actually not be very enjoyable.  The fries are too salty, the sweets can be sickeningly sweet, and overall the good stuff just isn’t as good as we remembered.  Things simply aren’t as tempting as I expected they would be.  I wouldn’t mind having some authentic Franconian cuisine again.

 

Success.

At the end of the week we had two working vehicles, a US cell phone plan with phones that worked, an apartment to move into before our allotted 30 days in our temporary place is up, and we were still standing.  Our air shipment was delivered early and everything that was absolutely essential had been accomplished.  I also managed do most of the non-essential things on my to-do list, although I only ate at Chik-fil-a four times.

We felt very equipped to deal with challenges after learning so much from living abroad. Click To Tweet

 

My tips for people reintegrating into the USA:

1. Have a designed “first box” ready.

Before we left I took a box or two over to my in-law’s home nearby and told her that was the box we needed immediately once we returned.  I honestly can’t remember doing this but fortunately my mother-in-law remembered!  It had appliances like my hair dryer, our blender, and Mr. Meena’s shaver among other important items.  We also left our car documents with them since we would need them immediately to reregister my car and update our insurance.

2. Order an Amazon Prime pantry box.

I was excited to discover that Amazon Prime now has a monthly membership option, since we really only need it for our first month or two back home and not for a full year.  I signed up and ordered a Prime pantry box with items like toilet paper, laundry detergent, coffee, and other things we’d want right away once we got home.  I sent it to my mother-in-law’s home and we picked it up on our first day back.  She added a few fresh items (creamer, bananas, frozen pizza, etc.) and we actually didn’t have to the grocery store until the sixth day back home!  This was a great time saver for us and prevented additional exhaustion.  It made us feel well-equipped, relaxed, and helped us to not eat out more than necessary this week.

3. Use a service like Apartment Arrangements.

Apartment Arrangements is a company in Charlotte that provides furnished apartments and is used by many companies for relocating or rotating employees.  We requested an apartment like this for our 30 days of company provided housing and were fortunate to receive one (instead of a hotel).  It made a huge difference because it provided all the comforts of home (couch, bed, washer/dryer, etc.) and meant that we didn’t have to unpack anything but our clothing right away.  For example, they provided a coffee pot and filters (which I forgot to order in my Prime box) among other little things that we needed right away but had overlooked.  It can be an expensive service but definitely worth it if you know you’ll be super busy getting your life set up again.

I don’t know how we would have survived without those things, honestly.  This past week would have been even more chaotic and exhausting than it already was.  But the hardest part of our reintegration is over now – I’m so happy to say that we made it home and had a successful first week!

Have you ever reintegrated?  What was hardest for you?

 

Photo by Giuseppe licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. 
Modifications made by My Meena Life.