Road Warriors

Life on the road, I've found over the years, is anything but easy. A few years ago, I set my intentions...I wanted to travel again. I had walked away from a extremely lucrative career, my condo, many friends, etc...in hopes of truly living. While I was unattached for the first time in my adult life, I willed that I would have an opportunity to travel again like I did when I was a child....to see the world.... The Universe led me to a position that became the vessel to these travels. In the beginning, I was anxious yet excited. I left behind all I knew and set out on a new frontier. As life moved moment to moment, and I began to experience more, things began to change. It took for an ancient LOVE to enter into my space for me to really realize that though I appreciated what I had done and had experienced......that I had begun to out grow my past desires, and that my new intention was Evolving as I was. Over the past few months, my confidant on my team who does what I do, began feeling the same way. He recently stepped down so that he could be with his family. I remember the night he made the decision, we joked about not remembering what it was like to have a home, or friends, or a life. Life on the road can be VERY CHALLENGING. Though friends and family back home are still in existence, we have no escape....no haven to escape to, no one to hang out with. We do everything by ourselves.....we eat alone, spend weekends alone, discover newness alone......and after a while it takes a toll on you. Very few people on the outside TRULY understand this unless they are going through it. Our job is to enter PROBLEM properties and fix the problems. Once the problems are fixed, we move onto the next and the next and the next. Our stress levels are through the roof, and when we really do get to get home we're so exhausted that it's difficult to really BE in the presence of your LOVEd ones without being asleep, sleepy, or completely drained mentally and emotionally.....and the few days we have at home, we're still called and emailed with the problems back at work......because we are the answer. Fast forward to today. Currently,on top of my regular duties of "problem solver" I'm also partnering with a construction company and playing the role of "project manager" as well for my company. I didn't tale to this guy very easily, but over the past month and a half, we have begun to build a good professional relationship. He's a genuinely good guy who doesn't like to step on toes, and I can appreciate that. So as we normally do, we had our morning huddle for the day's plan and decided we meet later for an update. About an hour later, out of nowhere, he came to the front desk and asked me if he could speak with me privately. This guy is always smiling and cracking jokes, but in this moment I knew something was wrong. He asked if we could go somewhere outside of work, and assured me that he was not "hitting on me", but really needed to talk to me about some thing. I reminded him that I would lose my job for hanging out with him outside of work, but the look in his eye told me that he really needed to talk. I noticed he looked like he was about to cry, and I immediately asked him if he wanted to step into a room to speak privately, he said "yes..." The moment we stepped into the room, he took a deep breath. I told him he was scaring me, and he started crying. I just sat quietly and allowed him his moment. He began to tell me that for the past 7 months, he has been going through a divorce. Like me, he travels constantly.....and one day his wife just got fed up with them being apart. He told me that he didn't know what to do or how to deal with what he was feeling, so he just drinks...."every day....every hour Sonia...on the job....I just drink..." He told me that this past Sunday, he tried to stop, and that he began to experience horrible withdrawals symptoms, and so he drank again. I just listened. All I could do is listen. When he stopped, I spoke....and all I could think to tell him was that I understood completely. I told him that I know first hand how difficult life on the road is, and how "alone" we can feel, and how drained we become....and how being the leader of others while on the road...we're expected to show up every day and be prepared to lead.....BUT I also understood that even though we are leaders of professional teams....we are also people ...we are people who go through things without the luxury of being able to fully deal with how we feel because we're always at work or away at work.......he began to smile just knowing that I totally understood where he was. We talked for a while....he confided in me ...cried some more....and I just listened. In the end, I told him that I knew he was in pain emotionally, but that he had to feel his way through what he was feeling. I reminded him that numbing his pain was only delaying what he would one day have to experience. He told me that he called AA, and wanted to attend a meeting. I told him that I would go with him, if he wanted me to. He thanked me for listening to him, and I thanked him for feeling comfortable enough to speak with me so openly.....as we had never had a personal conversation until that moment. I haven't spent the day asking "why did he choose to pour his heart out to me, a complete stranger" but rather, I spent the day sending him energy of LOVE....I know what he's feeling, and in the moment he cried.....he did so for us both. I know that though life on the road may not be easy.....had I not been living on this road, this man may not have had a shoulder to lean on in the moment he felt he needed one the most.......and I was instantly reminded of my own strength & of how purposeful this Universe is. I don't know where this road will lead me....or him....but I know that no matter how challenging our moments may seem, everything we need will be provided...even if it's something as simple as an ear to listen. We hugged one another as if we had known each other for years, and we've barely known one another a month.... but in that moment....nothing else mattered except that moment....and we parted ways with smiles. LOVE & LIGHT