Sourced from Clker

Today I am celebrating.  It is a cheerleading celebration, the kind where you honor the hard work done by someone else.

What I would really like to do it jump up and down, twirl around in my little happy dance, and clap my hands.  But, not only would that be frowned upon by the object of my pride and adulation, it might even earn me a few not so nice words.  You see, pep talks are ok if solicited, but THIS excitement would cause some huffs, maybe some puffs, and in between eye rolls he might have to actually admit he was enjoying it before trying to blow the house down.

I have been working for over a year with him, on and off, as he feels comfortable.  He is a Veteran, who, in the course of his service to our country overseas was injured.  The lasting effects include Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress; he was medically discharged and found himself struggling.

When I met him through a mutual friend, he told me repeatedly that he trusted no one, he cared for no one, that nothing ever worked out, and he could not be helped.  “Ok, but I am here if you need me.”  He scoffed, told me he doubted it.

I would check in with him, just to see how he was doing.  He would reply, one word answers at first. Then eventually full replies, even brief conversations.  Then he began to reach out, and I was there.

Turned out that he had these great future plans, he had figured out a pretty in depth map of what he wanted to achieve.  The problem was the gap between the now and then.  Point B had success defined.  Point A, the starting point, included unstable housing and unsteady employment and piling bills.  The steps to take on the path between the two was missing on the map.  For quite a while I heard a lot about how much couldn’t be done, “I can’t do this because…” was a very common sentence in our conversations.

If you have ever been in that sort of situation, and I have, you will know that “Just make the plan” or “Just do it” just doesn’t cut it.  You hear it, you think to yourself that it should be that easy, but you just get stuck.  For some reason you can’t compute, you just spin in circles.  It can be frustrating, stressful, and frightening to see the endpoint and have no idea how to maneuver yourself into position to bring that into fruition.

Together, we began to inventory what was needed for his vision to become reality.  We discussed the skills and resources he has and those he needs to develop; we created priority lists based on what he valued most; we talked about different options to lead to the same outcome.  There were a lot of hard questions presented, and many times when he would not like them, or the mirror he needed to face to answer them I wouldn’t hear back from him for a while. Sometimes he just wanted an easy answer from me.  While I wanted only the best for him, it wasn’t my place to decide.  Only he knew what that was, what that is.

Of all the paths we laid out, today he marched confidently down one.  He chose to attend a trade school, that started today.  Once completed, the school offers Veterans guaranteed employment and the it offers graduates job placement services.  The skills he learns here will provide a comfortable living and will be of use toward his ultimate goal.  And the beautiful part is he chose the trade and researched the schools himself, taking ownership of his success.

So why the celebration today?  Am I proud of this next step in his career?  Abso-freaking-lutely!!  But the absolute best part is when he asked “So after this, what next?”  That shift to possibility thinking, that change in perspective to “I can” is what has me giddy with joy!  Because I know HE CAN!