A note to our friends and
family who are wondering, “Whatever happened to the Buzzells?”
We had such a wonderful pre-tirement, lots of fun with family and friends, D&D afternoons that turned into parties that went on a day and more, too much rum and hookah and a glorious, indulgent time together being newlyweds. But on August 11th of 2012, Gary left to work in Korea, our pre-tirement came to an abrupt, and painful, end. We had been together every night since November of 2011, it was to be our first separation in nearly a year. I became very depressed and cried my way through, I did a good job of keeping busy with friends and family, all the while a little bit sad. To be honest, I hated going out of the house without him, most of our friends are couples and when in groups, I felt terribly alone. I lived for an email or the five minute phone call I got from Gary every evening, and if I missed that phone call, I became enraged because it was all I got, five minutes, none of which he was feeling great about, as he was miserable in Korea. The job in Daegu was good but the conditions were not favorable, besides bunking with 50 snoring men, Gary had to walk about a mile to work in 90+ degree weather with 90+% humidity. Before Gary left, one of his Commanders asked if he would come back and work for them permanently, Gary politely listened, but declined to make a commitment, thank goodness.
After three weeks apart
I picked Gary up from the airport and it took only a few minutes for
us to get into a fight. I have trouble with being physically distant
from a significant other, re-bonding is incredibly difficult for me,
regardless of that, we were fighting about my driving of all things. We recovered
from our argument but life was not to be the same, carefree, lazy
existence that we were spoiled with before.
Why did Gary go to work
in Korea? I had taken a very part time job in May of 2012,
but our savings were waning and none of the law enforcement, or
government, jobs that Gary had applied for were turning up results.
While working for the Navy Reserves he discovered that he could go on
brief assignments, practically anywhere, and get paid well. The only
downside, of course, was that I didn't get to come along.
Understanding that we needed to have an income, I was willing to let
him go on these chosen assignments, this was before I knew what
Hawai'i had in store for us.
In October of 2012 Gary
took a job in Hawai'i working at COMPACFLT, you know, the guys from
the movie, Battleship. He was the first Reservist to be trained to
supervise the “watchfloor” at COMPACFLT. I was under the
impression it was another temporary position, this time for a month,
but he was actually being groomed as the first in an experimental
program that was not at all short term. Having literally no idea
about this, I visited him in Hawai'i in November, had a lovely time,
came back to the mainland and waited for his return.
Throughout November and
December I worked a lot, my twin nephews were born, there were tons
of parties and Holidays and one more assignment that took Gary to
Rhode Island for two weeks. While in Rhode Island Gary got a call
from COMPACFLT, they wanted him back for a job that started
mid-January and would go until September of 2013. We were on the
phone, states and states away from one another and Gary was telling
me all this and saying that he wanted me to move to Hawai'i with him
for this job. I stopped him there and told him I would need to get
off of the phone and call him back. We were, in essence, being asked
to make a life-changing decision in 48 hours while we were miles
apart, thanks COMPACFLT!
I hate moving,
everything about it fills me with horror, dread, anxiety and more
horror, dread and anxiety. Who wouldn't want to live in Hawai'i?
But it was more complicated for me than that, the complication of
moving from our beautiful apartment, finding a new one on a foreign
(trust me) island, then just turning around and moving back, having
to find a new apartment, I was not keen on the idea, nor on what it
would cost us to do so, none of which would be financially
facilitated by the Navy. Thoughts, emotions, questions, swirling
about in my head, I did what I always do in such a situation, I
called family. My sis-in-law, Regina, answered and we talked it out.
By the time we got off the phone I was ready to move, but that
feeling was to be short lived. The more I thought about it the more
I did not feel at peace with moving, it seemed a rash and financially
unwise move to make. I asked Gary to get more information from his
contact and, as it turned out, though the Navy would not pay for us
to move, they would pay for our housing in both Hawai'i and
California. I was relieved to learn this, Gary also gave me
permission to stay, he would need to be in California from time to
time for job interviews anyway and it was decided that I would simply
fly back and forth monthly.
On the 13th
of January, Gary got on a plane, it would be a month before I made it
out to Hawai'i, we wanted to give him time to adjust to the job, get
a car and apartment, I would fly out for Valentine's Day in February.
I cannot express the emotion I felt when I hugged him in the O'ahu
airport, except to say that I cried then and I'm crying as I write
about it.
Gary had found an
incredible apartment in a friendly little area called, Hawai'i Kai.
I had a nice visit and then returned to-San Jose, a lot of gin and an
increasing self-imposed isolation. The months that followed are what
I call, “Bottle Battles of the Pacific Blues”, more on that
another time. To give you an idea of what life was like on a daily
basis in Hawai'i, Gary had a 2-3 hour commute, if he was working a
day shift he got up at 3.30am, drove to work, was on the watchfloor
for 12-14 hours and then got home between 7 and 8pm. If he was
working a night shift (he almost exclusively worked nights when I was
there so I'll detail our schedule), he would get up around 3pm, have
breakfast and leave for work by 4. I would then clean the house, do
laundry and shopping, get home by 6pm, prepare his dinner, usually a
casserole as I would need to heat it up in the morning, eat, drink
and pass out. Around 6am I would wake up, waiting for his call that
could come as late as 8am, once he called I would get up, put his
dinner in the oven and go back to bed. He would get home usually a
little after 9am, eat and go to bed. I would go back to bed with him
as it was the only way to spend time with him, I didn't care that we
were sleeping, I just wanted to be near him. I would wake around
11am, get up, start his laundry and the days would repeat themselves
into weeks. Eventually I just stayed on Hawai'i time, even in San
Jose, generally getting up late in the afternoon and staying up into
the bleak morning. We didn't get out much, Gary was perpetually in
need of sleep and I didn't have a car and was 49 bus stops away from
what we called “downtown” i.e. Waikiki, which we didn't like
anyway, and there was no reason to travel there as we had everything
we needed in Hawai'i Kai, even a health food store! It actually
wasn't until our last week in Hawai'i that I realized how much we
never got out, I'm not sure if I'm bothered by it or not, it was our
reality, the monotonous traffic, stiffling heat and maintained
isolation, there were good things too, I loved the birds and made friends with some of the local homeless cats. Gary did have days off sometimes, but he usually slept
during them and we learned to treasure any hours that we could spend
on the couch together. During this time I turned 40 and we had our
two year anniversary, which Gary had to work on, we did get to go to
the Big Island for a few days though, and I cherish that trip and
time off we had.
On Monday the 15th
of July, Gary missed a phone call, it was the Santa Clara County
Sheriff's Office. I was playing on the computer next to him when he
returned the call, they wanted him to come in for his final
interview. Just so happens that I was flying back to California the
next day, Tuesday, so we booked Gary a thousand dollar plane ticket and flew
back together. He had his interview Wednesday, flew back to Hawai'i
Thursday and went back to work Friday. He got the job!
Ecstatic, I flew back to
Hawai'i the following Wednesday, we moved out of our apartment a week
later and into the BOQ (Bachelors Officer's Quarters) on base, the
same BOQ he had lived in during his first week in Hawai'i, almost a
year before. It was at this time that I realized how little we had
left our apartment as a couple, we finally had time to go to the
Punchbowl, climb/hike/walk Diamondhead and even just have breakfast
at a cafe together, I thought it was paradise and that it would
continue while he was in the Academy, wishful thinking.
“Working in Paradise is
not a vacation.”-Navy co-worker
Most important to me, when Gary got temporarily stationed in Hawai'i, was that he was somewhere that I could visit him, not in Iraq or Afghanistan. I repeated this phrase to myself and to everyone I spoke to about the move, over and over, like a mantra, like something meant to soothe, but it became too easy to say rather than to express my confusion, depression and loneliness, all of which still rests with me today. You see, normally when a spouse comes home from a deployment, there are a few months spent with family before they go back to work, the military understands the need for the couple to re-bond before sending them away again. It may seem that Gary and I were not so separate as I could see him in Hawai'i, but please re-visit a few paragraphs before this one and read again that I had to get into the same bed with him to spend time with him, we were asleep, not talking, not bonding, not sharing more than a bed, this was on and off for a year. When he moved back to San Jose, he had three days spent on work, two with family, 2 ½ with friends and 2 ½ with me, then he started Academy.
The first night of
Academy we were up until 2.30am trying to manage his workload, at
4am, he got back up and went to the Academy. The first weekend he
had off was devoted entirely to Academy chores, it was, for both of
us, an extremely difficult time. We are at the end of the third
week, our routine is as follows: Gary gets up between 3 and 4.30am,
leaves the house by 5.30am, gets home between 7 and 8pm, eats, does
homework, gear preparations, shines his boots, irons his uniforms,
lays on the couch with me for 20 minutes and goes to bed by 10pm, if
he's lucky. I cook, I clean, I cherish my 20 minutes at mealtime and
my 20 minutes on the couch and then, we sleep in the same bed
together.
So what has happened to
the Buzzells is a very long, hard year of repeating that August
feeling, waiting desperately for a 5 minute phone call.
Last weekend, Gary
actually had Labor Day off and we got to watch some movies together,
it felt like the best thing ever. This weekend Gary has Reserve
Duty, he'll come home from Academy tonight, get his uniform ready for
the weekend, eat and go to bed, he'll leave the house at 5am tomorrow and be home at 6pm on
Sunday, then he goes back to Academy Monday morning. I'm not
complaining, I'm extremely grateful to him for the unbelievably hard
work he's done the past year, he found some very ingenious ways of
getting a paycheck. I'm also in awe of his dedication, commitment
and continued patience with me. He is an amazing man and I am very
lucky to have him as my husband.
Please don't be offended if
we are distant for the next 6 months, completing Academy is a
priority, as is spending any free time we have, alone, for now. I'm
sure we'll eventually make it out into the world again, in the
meantime, be patient, know that we miss you but that for now,
we need to take care of one another and spend what time we do have
together, awake.
This concludes your Benefits Brief.
