What Is Today Trying To Teach Me?

Number 4, my 15-year-old, is a sophomore in high school at a boarding school about 5 hours away.

She LOVES school.

Her school (like the rest of the country) is experiencing an upswing in covid cases.

The protocol at her school is if you test positive you need to go home for 10 days.

Since there are lots of international students at her school as well as seniors who want to experience the last two weeks of their high school career and attend their graduation in person, they have increased testing and gone back to wearing masks indoors which is annoying for the kids, but at least they are still having an almost normal school year.

Last Monday Number 4’s roommate tested positive for covid.

Luckily Number 4 was at a swim meet in another state for the weekend so she hadn’t spent much time around her.

Her roommate went home on Monday, but since they were close contacts on Sunday night through Monday morning, Number 4 has to get tested every day for 5 days.

This is the last “hard” week of school for Number 4.

She’s finishing up classes and had some big assignments due this week, and she also took a lifeguard certification course which ran from Monday through Thursday.

She called me on Monday to tell me what was going on.

I’m supposed to pick her up on the last day of school in two weeks, but if she tests positive she’ll have to leave school asap and she wouldn’t be able to come back at all.

She has had a really great year. Like a REALLY GREAT YEAR.

She’s loved school.

I asked her last week if she was excited to come home for the summer and her answer was “not really”.

😂😂😂

(Then she backpedaled and made sure I knew she actually was looking forward to coming home and seeing me and hopefully finding a job and seeing her friends and brothers and sisters and blah blah blah.

Last year at this time she asked to come home early because she was really having a hard time at the end of the year.

This year it’s the total opposite.

She’s had the best time and she’s bummed it’s ending.

She hasn’t gone to swim practice this week because the lifeguarding course she’s taking is during practice time.

So if she tested positive before the final test, she wouldn’t be certified and then she wouldn’t be able to get a lifeguarding job this summer which is something she really hopes to do.

She also hasn’t seen her swim team friends this week since she’s missed practice.

And if she tests positive and has to leave she wouldn’t see her friends and teammates who are seniors and post grads again at all.

She was pretty bummed at the possibility of that happening.

Because the next two weeks are probably two of the best weeks of the whole swim season. They’re more laid back and I’m sure they’ll do lots of fun stuff.

Then there’s “intensive.”

Intensive is a class you take for the last 2 weeks of school. There are lots of fun options for the kids. I think intensive is a reward for having such a challenging courseload during the year.

I could be totally wrong.

Anyway, Number 4’s intensive is playing with service dogs.

PLAYING WITH DOGS.

Okay I don’t think Playing With Dogs is the name of the course and I don’t know if she is actually playing with service dogs, but she’s hanging out with dogs or doing something with dogs for two weeks and she’s SO excited.

If she tests positive this week she has to come home and then she’ll miss the doggies, too.

Number 4 has never worked harder academically. This is the first time in her life she’s had to actually work hard for good grades. It’s been so good for her.

She’s risen to the occasion.

And she’s had a challenging year. She’s had multiple injuries and missed several weeks of in-the-water training. She had Covid in January and missed two weeks of school and swimming and one of the few high school meets they were able to have this year.

So she’s been working really hard and looking forward to these next two weeks for a long time. She deserves them. She’s earned them.

Every day this week has been a nail-biter until she gets tested and gets her results.

She made it through Wednesday.

I hadn’t heard from her yesterday and finally the phone rang around 6 pm.

“MOM! I PASSED THE LIFEGUARDING COURSE AND I TESTED NEGATIVE AGAIN!!!” she yelled via Facetime.

“ONLY ONE MORE TEST TO GO!!!!”

WOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!! We both yelled as we jumped up and down.

Well, at least she got the lifeguarding course done.

Now a summer job is a possibility.

I haven’t heard from her yet today which means she hasn’t gotten tested yet, because either way she’ll call me immediately.

If she’s jumping up and down and yelling she’ll be able to stay for her last two weeks.

If she’s crying, well, I’ll be driving to get her first thing in the morning.

I really hope she doesn’t have to leave.

I would feel terrible for her.

In her words, it would be devastating.

I know it would suck.

But I also know she’d be okay.

She won’t be traumatized or permanently scarred.

She’ll be disappointed and sad.

But disappointed and sad are two emotions she needs to practice experiencing.

Because that shit isn’t gonna stop. Ever.

And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this recently.

Life is full of disappointments and let downs.

FULL OF THEM.

But maybe they aren’t disappointments.

Maybe they are opportunities.

Maybe the reason the hard stuff happens is because there’s something better for you, waiting for you.

But you’ll never see it if something doesn’t change.

Because the change – the disappointment – helps you see things from a different perspective or try something different.

And in doing so, you discover something about yourself.

Something you never even knew you were good at.

Something you never even knew you enjoyed.

Disappointment isn’t bad then.

It’s what forces you to move in a different direction.

It’s actually what helps you start digging.

It helps you unearth your next level of potential.

You don’t figure that shit out when everything is comfortable.

I know from experience.

So this is how I’m really practicing looking at every situation I find myself in.

Rather than obsessively asking myself why is this happening to me, I’ve been asking myself what am I going to learn today?

What is the Universe gonna teach me today?

I am far from having this mastered.

I have to redirect myself all the time.

Here’s what I know.

When I look at a problem with curiosity it’s a whole different ball game.

I’m not angry.

I’m not impatient.

I’m not worried.

I’m not losing my shit.

I’m not tired.

I’m just… open.

You can’t be open to receive anything when you are angry and judgmental.

Plus being angry and judgmental is fucking exhausting.

So, I’m picturing Number 4 calling me with good news. I’m putting that energy out there.

I hope I get a super excited, jumping-up-and-down, I GET TO STAY AT SCHOOL!!!!! Facetime very shortly.

If not, well…

Well, then I’ll have the opportunity to start teaching this lesson about disappointment to my 15-year-old tomorrow, about 35 years earlier than I learned it.

I can’t imagine where I’d be now if someone had started teaching me this when I was fifteen.

But I have a feeling that about 35 years from now Number 4 is gonna show me.