As I countdown the days until I have to take my son to college, 19 days to be exact, I have been struggling with the journey as well as the task itself. Being Safety Sarah, I am of course analyzing the risk in all of it. 4 flights, 6 airport experiences, 2 layovers, 1 hotel/3 nights, and 1 college campus. How does one calculate the risk in all of that knowing what is out there in the world today? I came to the realization last night as I ran, which is how I do my best thinking, that I can’t. There is just too much to calculate and consider-the only thing I can do is make the end goal part of every decision I make on a daily basis from today until the day I safely deliver him to school. Now, try to explain that to a 17 year old that just graduated and wants to have a little fun before he heads to military school-not so easy! Please feel for me:)
Many of you may be dealing with semesters online as already released by colleges, but New Mexico Military Institute will be opening for business as “not so usual” come the end of this month. They have very strict guidelines already as being a military school but even more so with the pandemic. Once he gets there, he belongs to them, regardless of how he arrives-no student will be turned away-they have protocols for all case scenarios. The school has done a risk analysis-planned, planned, and planned again as things have changed, and that leaves me, his mom, leaving him across the country, knowing I can’t be there if he needs me, unless there is a serious reason, but still, airports, plane rides, people, hotels, etc. until I can be there. You get the picture!
My point in all of this is that I needed to realize that I can’t control everything, sometimes the risk is difficult to calculate (even for Safety Sarah), and that I needed to focus on the every day and ask myself the hard question-how will this decision affect the end goal? If the risk is high in that decision, then the answer is that it doesn’t happen. End of story. This is just my way of rationalizing how to navigate and it may not work for you but try it, you never know!
Be Safe-Analyze Risk-Make clear decisions-Be confident in what you decide!-Safety Sarah Says….