Failure is an option

Just under 2 miles up the mountain, I knew I was done.

Huffing and puffing while climbing hills is a fairly normal, if humbling, thing for me. Some folks can huff and puff and claim they love it (I know, I don’t get it either) and some, like me, can power through enough to claim the view and then enjoy the glorious down.

But this was different. This was “I don’t think I can power through” territory.

How did it get to that point? Whoo boy. Let’s back up.

The previous weekend, I’d hiked with friends through 6 different VA state parks. I’d joked with them about dreading it, but I was looking forward to being part of the Awareness Hike, a 25-ish mile backpack through some of the hardest parts of the Virginia Appalachian trail, a fundraising hike in support of families and kids with special needs. It would be hard, but we’d be able to claim bad-ass points at the end. Solid type-2 fun.

While doing the state park trip, I’d left my long-term foster dog, Muffie, at the shelter of the rescue I was working with. Because Muffie is a dog with severe reactivity issues, I left explicit instructions that any potential adopters should talk to me before taking her home. This seemed clear to me. And it seemed like it would ensure that I would see Muffie again after I dropped her off. I’d had her for more than 5 months, so it’s natural that I was pretty attached to her and wanted a chance to a) vet the home that she would go to and b) have a chance to say goodbye.

You can probably guess that things didn’t go as planned.

**

There’s a thing that happens in Virginia in the spring. It’s known as “The Pollening,” when the trees wake up one day and say “Hey! It’s spring!” and dump inches of lung-clogging yellow dust on us silly humans who decide to hike under them.

This season, The Pollening got me on that state park weekend. I started sneezing, coughing, getting stuffy. I figured it was just allergies and I’d get over it, so I headed home and turned my thoughts to the Awareness Hike. I passed a pleasant hour or so in the car mentally rearranging my backpack, thinking about how to lighten my toiletries, and debating if I need to take my lightweight chair or not.

Then I made the mistake of stopping to check my email and the world ground to screeching halt. My email told me that Muffie had been sent home to a new family without my knowledge. The rescue seemed to think I would be happy about this.

I’m not going to lie…the next few hours were pretty terrible. I understand now what people mean when they say “I was distraught.” There was crying, yelling, rage typing on my phone as I tried to figure out what had happened. Basically, the rescue had ignored my instructions, ignored all the information I’d been sending about Muffie for months, and sent her home with a new family without a word to me - or without the family knowing that she’d been in foster care or about any of her issues.

I was so MAD, you all. And sad and heartbroken.

Sparing you more detail, I’ll say that so far (after two weeks) it seems like we got lucky and Muffie landed with a family that isn’t afraid of her dog reactivity. That is a huge relief, because I vowed that the only way I would give Muffie up was if she went to a home that would love her like I did, invest in her training, and never abandon her. Fingers crossed this is what she wound up with.

These past months, since November, have not been easy. The new presidential administration is not friendly to people like me, both in my personal beliefs and in my professional life working for a public media station. Every day at work is stressful and not much fun. Muffie was with me through all of it; she was the one thing I looked forward to coming home to when the day was done. We’d just found a new park nearby and she was doing so well, making progress in her reactivity. So, having her taken from me with no chance to say goodbye…it was pretty devastating.

I’ve blogged before about how stress has made itself known in my body. And looking back at that moment on the mountain when I knew I was done, it seems the same thing happened here.

The allergies from The Pollening had transitioned to a full on spring cold. I’d spent several days in and out of tears as I worked through Muffie’s situation. Breathing and sleeping had been a challenge in the week leading up to the Awareness Hike. I was, in a word, a mess. But I was hopeful I could power through as I have many time before.

I was wrong.

As I huffed my way up to the group who was kindly waiting for me, I told them I was done. I couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t just normal mountain huffing. It was as tired after less than 2 miles than I normally am after 10, and we had 20+ more miles to go with heavy packs. I knew it was time to call it a day.

I turned back.

As I made my way down the mountain, I considered that I could probably make my way to the first shelter and at least spend the night with the group after they finished the first mountain. So when I got back to the car, I tried to lighten my pack, strapped it on, and headed over the Tye River and started up the hill.

I still had a faint hope of getting to the shelter as this point. But this was a pretty fake smile.

.25 miles in, I realize it really wasn’t going to happen. I think I probably paced back and forth on that stretch of trail at least 4 times, telling myself “you can power through, Jodi, just go” and then going up a bit and having to stop to breathe. Eventually, I landed on the thought that the group deserved to do the hike without worrying about me, so I threw in the towel and headed back down, a phrase ringing in my head: “Well, I guess failure is an option.”

You know the scene.

Ed Harris as Gene Kranz, in his white vest and crew cut, laying down the law for a team of engineers. They needed to step up to save the lives of Jim Lovell/Tom Hanks, Fred Hayes/Bill Paxton and Jack Swigert/Kevin Bacon.

God, I love Apollo 13. What a great movie. I might need to go watch it again.

But Kranz’s emphatic sentiment haunts many a GenXer like me, who grew up believing that there was always more we could have done to be more successful. That if we just tried a little bit harder, were a bit tougher, we wouldn’t have failed.

But here’s the thing. That is simply not true. Failure happens all the time. Failure is part of life. It’s part of learning, creating, growing, adapting, achieving. At the risk of being dramatic, I believe it’s the ultimate test of what it means to be human. Can you fail…and then keep going?

On the Awareness Hike, I failed for sure. I had a goal, and I didn’t come anywhere near to meeting it.

I think back to teenage Jodi, or even Jodi in her 20s, and I wonder how she would have reacted to this situation. Frankly, I think she’d be crushed with embarrassment and shame. I imagine she’d have cried a lot.

But happily, I’m not 20-something Jodi anymore. I didn’t cry at all as I came down the mountain, or as I drove home, turning all my options over in my head, wondering if I’d made a mistake. At one point in my internal discussions about this, I actually said to myself “It doesn’t matter if the decision was a mistake. It’s the decision you made, so own it.”

And I realized that I did own it, and it was ok. Sometimes we get sick. Sometimes our body doesn’t do what we want it to do. That’s life. That’s being human.

I’ve tried and failed at dozens of things, and I’m still here. I have a community of people around me who have lifted me up and refused to let me be too ashamed of turning back. As one of those people reminded me, I helped raise more than $31K for kids with special needs and their families. That’s actually not a failure at all, when you think about it.

In the aftermath of all of this, I see signs of hope. I’ve done a lot of sleeping since I came home. I’ve done a lot of deep breathing and meditation. I’ve turned my focus to another backpacking trip in May, and to a 96-mile trek coming up this summer. I miss Muffie, but she is safe and hopefully happy, and having her taken away so rudely has made me realize that I may be ready to have a dog in my life full-time again.

Spring is here. The Pollening will pass and we will be left with that beautiful bright green, plus all the flowers. The politics may not get better, but I believe we can handle them with more strength and grace when we are fueled by sun, fresh air, and the inevitable renewal of both people and nature that comes with this time of year.

So, let’s go. Let’s see what our next goal, and possible failure, might be.