Mood:  a-ok

E.S.O.A.L - emotionally stretching opportunity of a lifetime.

Pretty much speaks for itself doesn't it? Hardly. So what is ESOAL really? I know for the majority of you that heard of ESOAL, it was portrayed to you as "boot camp". Unfortunately I had a rude awakening. Picture yourself in a concentration camp and you'll get a taste of what I experienced. We were nothing, nobodies, lesser beings than scum. We couldn't talk, move, or eat without permission. We had to forget all insecurities and work our behinds off for a piece of bread or 5 minutes of sleep. It was hard, but worth it.

The whole event went for 80 hours with a total of 4 hours sleep. I remember getting ready to go to bed that first night. ESOAL hadn't started and yet i was terrified. We carried our sleeping bags out to the football field and anxiously laid down to sleep. I prayed my heart out asking God to give me the strength I would need to endure this torture filled LTE (life transforming event). After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.

About 2 hours later we were woken up by our screaming majors. "Get up you filthy rodents!" I was taken aback by the things they were saying. But i shrugged the words off and told myself that through God i could do this. We had 1 minute to be standing at attention in our company. I ran to the other end of the football field and tried my hardest to be still. "Welcome to ESOAL. This is not a game." and then the field lights went out. As about 400 interns stood there, afraid to look around or react to the cold, dark night, the facilitators weaved in between us and whispered that we were failures, that we couldn't do this, that we might as well give up now. But i was determined to make it through this. I closed my ears to their hurtful words and i choked back the tears. ESOAL had begun.

The next hours are all a blur to me. Many of us have tried to relive the experience by writing it down. I can't tell you how many people have supressed the memories of this event, including myself. I vaguely remember doing the old obstacle course "The OC". It consists of wading through waist high muddy swamp water, jumping over a wall almost as tall as myself, climbing a net to get up a cliff and then repelling down with a rope, going over and under bars, army crawling under barbed wire, swinging across a small pond, and running through tires. I look back and i'm surprised at the fact that i made it through multiple times. I remember struggling and thinking i couldn't, but i had to, and i did.

The new obstacle course "The Playground" was worse. A true navy seal training obstacle course. I looked at all the obstacles and immediately started tearing up. I was going to have to do that. How? God? Why? I was ready to ring out at that point. Anything to stop myself from having to embarrassingly stumble through this monstrous course. But i stopped and just told myself i had to. It didn't matter how stupid i looked, i needed to get through this. I don't remember how, but eventually i made it through. I did it. it was getting easier. i was forgetting about my insecurities and my previous failures. i stopped telling myself i couldn't and reassuring mself that God could. and he did.

We did other little events like paintballing (which consisted of us getting shot by our majors), rolling the hill, standing at attention for an hour and a half, sleep no sleep (sleep for 5 minutes, wake up and jump in a tub of ice water, then stand by the fire, then do it all over again), and hide and seek (running and hiding from the majors).

Unfortunately i had to ring out the second day before the end because of some medical problems. While running the OC for the like seventh time I felt a sharp pain in my chest. i couldn't breathe and i couldn't move. i collapsed and the next thing i knew i was in the ambulance they had back at main base and i was hooked up to an oxygen tank, IV, and EKG (heart monitor). i heard beeping and people talking but eventually passed out again. The next time i woke up i was ready to go back out there. I begged the medics to let me continue participating. They loaded me up with aspirin and sent me back out with a medic standing at my side. we marched, pulled a bus, carried the bell, and i just kept on moving. i was determined to finish finish. a few hours later i felt the pains again. i tried to keep a straight face. i wanted to fight back whatever my body was doing. but the medic saw the tears in my eyes and they told me i needed to ring out. so i did.

I bet you're probably wondering, "what the heck is a person supposed to get from a thing like this?!" well its quite simple actually. we're supposed to reach this point called BAR - burial and ressurection. Basically we need to bury our physical bodies and ressurect the spiritual strength. To be born again something needs to die. I thought it'd be simple to reach BAR - bury my body, got it; rely on God, sounds simple enough. Man was i wrong.

My BAR Moments:

1. My first BAR moment was when I was fumbling through the OC for the first time. i was trying my hardest to pull myself up this cliff, but i kept failing miserably. My brothers were trying so hard to help me. one above me held out his hand for me to grab and one below me kept pushing me up (as they had for the rest of the sisters). but for some reason i just couldn't pull myself up, my footing kept slipping and my hands burned as the netting ripped through my fingers. i was crying and screaming out about how i couldn't do it, i couldn't do it, i couldn't do it. my brothers kept shouting that i could, that i shouldn't give up, that i needed to do this. and then i stopped and took a breath. i screamed at the top of my lungs that God will get me through, that God can do this. Almost immediately i was able to crawl up the rest of the cliff and finally catch my breath. my platoon all surrounded me and gave me a hug and talked about how proud they were of me. but most importantly, i knew God was proud of me.

2. I'm still working on my second BAR moment actually. I'm a little bitter towards the fact that i didn't finish finish ESOAL because i know i could have. I'm not exactly sure why God wanted me to stop at that point, but he did. it's going to take time for me to be okay with not finish finishing like the majority of my coremates, but i'm sure God has something to teach me through it.

 There is so much more that i could say about ESOAL but i think i've written enough about it for one day.