I know this is just my personal opinion, but the sitting idle, ie. resting would be killer for me.
I know it's not apples to apples, but my husband is deploying to Afghanistan in less than 36 hours. I wish we could just get him gone already! He's been working a ton preparing, and that's actually been a blessing in disguise. Whenever we're together we're both kind of cross, not wanting to confront painful emotions and start breaking down in front of the toddler, so most of the time we sit awkwardly with this HUGE elephant in the room of him leaving to a hostile country for half a year. It's terrible! Tomorrow he gets to come home early from work to spend the day before he leaves tomorrow night. I'm almost dreading it. Trying to think of something to do like go to the park so we don't have to sit here and stare at eachother and think about him leaving. Maybe we just have faulty coping skills, but that's one of the reasons that it's SO hard for me to wrap my head around the idea the resting periods.