Detours

Road block. Detour. Speed bump. Setback. Hiccup.

We all experience them. We all react to them. How we react to them is key.

Sam was supposed to graduate from boot camp this past Thursday. She called me last Saturday evening to tell me that she was being held back for 2 weeks, along with 11 other girls. Two of the girls in her division had tested positive for COVID, one of them in the bunk next to Sam. Those considered within the “ring of fire” had to be quarantined, sent to ROM (Restriction of Movement). 

My first reaction was WTF. I could hear the tears in her voice, but overall she sounded ok and somewhat positive. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to call, or get mail, or even write while in quarantine.

What??? Here I am, thinking we are in the home stretch. She literally had to do her final run, battle stations, and then graduation. FOUR days left. We had a party planned for Friday night to watch her graduation (virtually, of course. Thank you again, COVID). Nope.

So this week has been full of ups and downs. At first, I was super positive, thinking there is a reason for this. Maybe she is going to help someone, maybe someone is going to help her. I don’t know. WE don’t know. We’re not in charge, after all. There is something bigger than us. But then I started reading things on social media (really, Sharon, you know better) that started getting me down. I was desperate for any news or information that I might find, so I stayed plugged in. And the more I saw, the more I read, the sadder I got.

I wanted to continue writing to give her support, but I wasn’t sure where to send the letters. To her original address and hope that they were forwarded to her? What happens when the division actually graduates? Will she get the letters? I heard from a couple other moms that sending letters through an app called Sandboxx was working well in quarantine, getting to the recruits quickly. So I started doing that.

But still I had my doubts. So I sent a message to the RTC Facebook page. The reply I got basically said there is no mail delivery in ROM, and any letters will most likely be returned to sender. I know this is the military, but still. No words of advice, not even use of the word “unfortunately”, which would have given a completely different tone to that message. (I’m thinking whoever wrote it received little to no mail while in boot camp.) Now, even though I had heard from moms who had actually communicated with their recruits while they were quarantined (like within the last 2 weeks), for some reason I took this response as gospel. I was devastated, heartbroken, sad. I think I have cried more since last Saturday than I have in the last 8 weeks that she’s been gone, and most of it yesterday!

Finally, I had enough. I went to my safe space, my journal. I started journaling how I was feeling, how sad I was for her and how I worried about how she was doing mentally and emotionally. And then I started turning it around. Getting lost in the words, I journaled about how much she has already overcome, how she has been training for setbacks like this and many others, she’s with other girls, she’s not alone. “Sam is so strong.” As soon as I finished that last sentence, my smoke detector went off, scaring the shit out of me and bringing me back to reality. I climbed the stairs, looking for something to stand on to reach the detector, as it continued screeching in my ears. Finally I got it shut off. My heart was beating so fast. And then I kind of chuckled. Because I know that was my mom. She was telling me, in that perfect moment, that Sam was fine, snap out of it. Screaming it at me, actually. And then I thought “what am I so worried about? She has so many angels watching over her. How could she NOT be fine?”

So I let it go. I detached. And I instantly felt a shift in my vibration. Honestly, it was so amazing. I have all of these tools to work through situations like this, tools that I have learned to use over the last couple of years. Why it took me a whole week, I have no idea. I guess all the weeks of missing her just came together and exploded. Or maybe I was just too focused on the end of boot camp and being able to communicate with her on a (somewhat) regular basis again.

I just needed a reminder that life does not always work out the way we plan. We will always have road blocks, detours, speed bumps, setbacks and hiccups. It’s how we react that is key.

Update: I got a letter in the mail today. From quarantine! She is disappointed, but overall upbeat and positive. She finished her book, The Alchemist, and even sent me a couple of quotes from the book:
 “To do that successfully, I must have no fear of failure. It was my fear of failure
that first kept me from attempting…”
And then this one (it’s almost like she can read my mind sometimes):
 “People’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. Their hearts become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen [our hearts] suffer terribly.”
‘Listen to your heart, Shoosh.’

‘PS I got your letter…teared up a little but also smiled.’   (so much for no mail delivery in quarantine 🙂

She amazes me. Every day.