It's always hard for a guy who's been in a system for seven years and then to transition into another system.
When you've been out for five months, it takes a while to get everything straight in your head. Luckily, my coach and team-mates have treated me extremely well, because that's important when you're finding your way back.
Gravity always sucks. It really, really does. It's a big challenge just re-adapting to feeling heavy again, you know? Even my arm feels heavy. My legs feel heavy.
Going home to Australia, it's good to get home, but it's kind of bad too because you get used to that way of life again and you have to come back to America.
It's always a little more difficult after taking a few years off, which we did from 2004 through 2008. It's more difficult to get the machine in gear again, but when you become used to it, then it becomes easier.
Well, probably having to be away from home. When I come back I kind of feel like there's a routine going on that I'm not a part of, so that can be difficult.
It takes a little time to return to a Formula One car after 15 months away and to get back in the rhythm again, but after about 20 laps, I was feeling really comfortable and enjoying myself.
You take a couple of days off, and your swing is going to be off. I think it takes 15, 20 at-bats to really feel comfortable again.
For me, it's different every year. Some years, it takes me a while to feel comfortable again, to feel like I'm ready to go. Other years, it clicks real fast. Sometimes, it just takes one game or one swing to feel like, 'OK, I'm back.'
Here in Israel, we want the boys back home, we demand it from our government, who often pay a steep price to get hostages back. But we need a happy ending. We don't want to deal with those days after release, their post-trauma or reintroduction to society. Yet coming home is only the start of their journey.
When you first come back from a long-term injury, you're just trying to get your body in order and trying to get back into the training and match routine.
The most uncomfortable thing about going to space is coming home. It's a little strange to get used to gravity again.
The lives of prisoners of war after they are returned is almost never discussed, never explored.
I know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away from America for such a long time. It's called expatriate.
My advice to the next quarterback that misses an entire year is to understand there is a little difference going out on the road again. You miss that. When you're hurt, you do not feel like you are part of it.
I spent my life behind bars, and what people don't know is getting out of prison is really nerve-racking - you're not used to society; you're not used to the world going by so fast - so to step on that lot was quite overwhelming.
I think as golfers, whenever you've had a long period off, you always sort of plan for a bit of rust. Not necessarily how you hit it, but just how you go about playing golf.
