Earlier this evening I got a call from one of my best friends. We met 10 years ago…just this week, in Seattle, Washington during the WTO craziness. I’d just moved to Seattle from Atlanta. Our friendship is one we both cherish. Over the years, we’ve laughed together, cried together, supported each other through the tough times, and celebrated the victories.
We’ve been trading messages the past couple of days so I assumed he was calling to catch up. We talked for a bit and then he took a serious tone and said “Robyn, I need to tell you something,” (Let me just pause here and say, that’s never a good sign. He rarely calls me by my given name, so I knew whatever he was going to tell me was serious) He proceeded to let me know that it’s highly likely that he’ll be going to Afghanistan for a pretty dangerous assignment in January.
The news hit me hard. I’ve known that this day would come sooner or later but I’ve always hoped it would be later. He proceeded to speak enthusiastically about the assignment. He’s really excited because he feels like this is important work and that this is his calling. I’m not really sure of all the details because I really just shut down after he said he was going to Afghanistan. He recognized very quickly that I had checked out from the conversation. And said” What’s wrong?”
I wrestled in that moment with how to respond…here’s someone who means the world to me, who’s been working for the last 4 years to get this assignment. And I all I can think about is how truly frightened I am for him. I took a deep breath and with everything inside of me fought off the emotions to say…”nothing’s wrong, I know how important this is to you. I’ll support you in this, but I need a couple of days to embrace it.”
The short of it is I probably will never embrace it. However, as his friend he needs my support more than ever right now, not just in this adventure, but for affairs stateside as well. So why am I sharing all of this tonight? Because it’s fresh on my mind and heart. My closest friends mean everything to me and I’ll find a way to support and encourage them as they pursue their dreams regardless of my fears. At the same time, I hope in sharing this with you it encourages you to do the same.
