I remember sitting impatiently in my seat waiting to get back to the jetway. All I wanted was to get off that plane. After being abruptly sent home from training camp and spending hours in the Atlanta airport, I wanted this miserable day to be over.
Finally, we were back in the Rochester airport, where I made my way to baggage claim and found waiting for me, not my parents, but my professor/advisor/life coach/mentor/friend Carrie Starr, who had been the first person I had called when AIM told me I had to go home. I had been so afraid to tell my parents that they had been the last to know – I had been in the airport for a few hours before I even called home. Either way, I wanted to take a day for myself to decompress from everything that had happened, so I had asked Carrie if I could stay at her house for the night.
I could feel the shame weighing me down as I walked through baggage claim to get to the Delta carousel. Everything was starting to move slower, like I wasn’t even part of my surroundings – some dismal nightmare I desperately wanted to wake up from. After all of this anticipation and preparation, I had failed.
That’s when I saw Carrie, and I can’t remember a time I needed to see a familiar face more than I did then. After an exhaustingly emotional day, I had no more tears left to cry, but I was shaking as we hugged, so relieved that I was back “home.” Then, she said five words to me.
“This was not a failure.”
Not “What happened?” Not “How are you feeling?” Not “I’m sorry.”
“This was not a failure.”
Five words that I hung on to. When I woke up at the Starr’s the next morning and had to remind myself where I was. When I spend days not wanting to do anything other than lie on the couch in silence. When I watched my squadmates prepare for the race without me.
“This was not a failure.”
I came home from Training Camp on a Wednesday, and thirty-seven Wednesdays have passed since. By the time I launch, it will be two weeks shy of an entire year since that day.
It could be the year I waited – a year I let slip by as I took this unanticipated detour. I could have ridden it out, surviving until it was over and I could just forget it all happened. It would have been so easy to bend to my setback and retreat into seclusion, embarrassed and ashamed.
But those five words resounded. “This was not a failure.”
So “the year I waited” became so much more.
The year I went to language school.
The year I joined my church.
The year I made new friends, and strengthened relationships with old ones.
The year I learned just how much I love the city of Rochester.
The year I became a better writer.
The year I finally sought treatment for my mental health.
The year I got baptized.
I spent this year doing anything but waiting, and it all started with five words.
“This was not a failure.”
She was right. It was anything but.
