To be honest, it was probably for the best. Better to just learn everything all at once, get it all over with. Then you have a few weeks to have your existential crisis rather than spreading it out.

[He offers a sympathetic look.]

If it helps, though - apparently no time passes at all. People leave, sometimes, and sometimes they come back, and when you go back it's like nothing happened. You don't remember anything, and you were never gone.