Throughout the course of this suicide investigation I was tasked with last month, I have felt extremely overwhelmed.  For a month, I’ve had to speak with the family, friends and co-workers of this deceased Soldier–many over the phone, a few through email correspondence, others in person.  I have been ignored by some, snapped at by others, yelled at and cried on.  When I’ve interviewed someone, I’ve tried to put myself in his or her shoes for a minute in the hopes that it would allow me the opportunity to see, if just for a second, the situation from his or her eyes.  I have attempted to console, empathize, and sympathize.  On a rare instance for me, a moment I am not proud of, I snapped back at one of the people that snapped at me.  The report and its contents are already over 100 pages long and I’ll be submitting it this week for legal review.  But it’s not yet over.  As soon as the legal review is complete, I have to brief it to the General and then again to the next of kin that have requested a sit down for the results.  A task I am not looking forward to in the slightest.

At the same time, I still have a life outside of this investigation, one that I regrettably haven’t been giving a great deal of diligent attention to.  When one is trying to juggle multiple high stressors at a time, one becomes very tired, very irritable, frustrated and just downright weary.  Many of you are aware that I’m preparing for a career conference with Cameron Brooks that takes place at the end of next month.  I failed miserably during one of their workshops and consultations in recent weeks.  I was not as prepared as I should have been; I also felt like the least prepared person present.  I’ll admit that I had a good long cry for about an hour following it asking myself all the questions one asks when they’ve just failed and embarrassed themselves, and put myself down in all the ways I could think to do so:  “Is this the right thing for me?  What am I thinking?  How could I go in there and believe that I could do this, that I could compete with these other more successful and accomplished candidates?  What do they now think of me?  What do I have to offer?  I’ve just ruined my chances.  The recruiter probably thinks I was a bad choice to let into their stellar program and I’m going to leave a bad mark on it.  I am a failure.”  It is suggested in these workshops that we record ourselves, so we can refer to it later and learn from our mistakes.  I’ve not been able to bring myself to watch the recording yet so not to relive the dreaded feelings I felt that evening.

It’s December now which means the conference is just a little over a month away.  Time is closing in and I am beginning to feel a great deal of pressure.  It’s been said that when you begin thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve begun to think about failure.  It’s true and I am petrified of failing.  Because of this fear and since the failed workshop last month, I’ve focused on the investigation all day, and then on everything Cameron Brooks for 3-5 hours in the evening before bed and additionally began participating in a Cameron Brooks conference call 2x week.  Physically and emotionally drained from the last few weeks, I made it to this past Friday, December 7.  And it was a good day.

It was a good day because I received the last document necessary to finish my investigation.  It was a good day because I received my official acceptance into the MBA program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.  It was a good day because I had a very successful Cameron Brooks mock interview over lunch with two other candidates that closed out the call telling me they were glad I was helping them, it was the best interview they’ve yet conducted and received a lot of constructive feedback, and that I am a valuable member of their team–words I really needed to hear.  It was a good day because I treated myself to lunch at a café and made an older gentleman smile the brightest smile I ever saw when I spoke to him on my way out the door.  It was a good day because my best friend sent me a video of her almost 4-year-old son thanking me for the birthday money I sent him—a whole whopping $10 bill that he commented was “A LOT”!  He had never received money in a birthday card before and his enthusiastic thanks and big smile brought an even larger smile to my heart.  It was a good day because I spent an hour on the phone with one of my sisters.  It was a good day because my tech-tarded, non-tinkerer self figured out how to put something together on her own without help (even if it did take me 2 hours..!)  The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures but in the simple joys.  Friday was full of the simple joys.  I desperately needed that reminder.

When you fail, it’s okay–as long as you learn from it and take the proactive measures necessary to avoid the same failure.  When you want to cry, it’s okay; let it out.  When you feel bad or sad, it’s okay; it’s not the end of the world.  Everyone has those days when they doubt themselves and feel like everything they do isn’t good enough or just plain sucks; but then, there are days like Friday that you feel akin to Superman.  It’s just the balance of the world.

I will fail again in my future.  I will cry again in the future.  I will feel bad and sad again in my future.  But with this gift of strength and simple joys given me on Friday, I can brief the General and the victim’s family in a couple weeks; and I can go back and watch and learn from that recording after all, because it’s all going to be okay.