The End - Coming Home - Final Thoughts

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This was a great journey. For me it was more personal development. True, I learned a lot professionally that I would have never learned anyplace else but the personal development was the best. The Academy confirmed beliefs that I had already had in my life and also made me look at my life in retrospective. It was this way for many because we are all mostly over the half way point in our careers when we come to the NA. We look back on where we came from and how we made it here to the NA. It helps you put it all into perspective and when you get back home go further, take all you learned, and put it to use in your personal and professional life. You are an NA Grad. You will go places. It was true, within weeks we were all getting messages about promoted classmates. They still come in each other week, including appointments to Chief of Police positions. I am very glad and proud of those people. They deserved the good news and each worked hard to get it.

As the final two weeks were closing in I was ready to go home, not that I was not enjoying the experience but I missed my family and life back home. I was ready to take what I learned and return home. The NA was winding down so I made sure to start reconnecting with my professional associates/network back home and take care of the final places I wanted to see and things to do at the NA. I knew that time with my new friends/colleagues was ending so I enjoyed those last nights at the Grove. The whole class even had one final get together the last Saturday of week 9 at the Grove and then that was pretty much it for the fellowshipping. In the final week we all said our goodbyes. It went very fast. We are done with classes that last Tuesday. Families came in on Wednesdays and the place was almost void of NA students after that. We graduated Friday morning and I headed directly to the Train to go back home. Everyone packs the days before. On the way I met up with my good buddy Earl and I had lunch together with his family one final time. He graduated with me too except Earl was local. Earl has since visited my Family in Florida, so see the relationships do last. Earl says he is moving here in three years, I hope so.

We have all (155 of us) have kept in touch with the benefit of Social Media. I hope the pace keeps up, time will tell. Will there be a reunion? Who Knows, but I hope some of us will see each other. I know some will because we have local NA Chapters and other organizations that we all belong to. I don't think all 210 of us will ever be together again though. If you told me I would have developed such bonds with all these folks before I went I would have not believed anyone but it was true... you make friends for life at the NA. I feel it is because we all experienced something very special together that we never could have experienced alone. We became a brotherhood that is now part of the bigger brotherhood, the National Academy Associates (FBINAA). I see it and feel it every day now. This gives you closure and lets you move on to the next level.

When I arrived home it was great. I was back with my family. I can not express enough love for the support that they gave me. My little girl (age 6) was so excited to get dad back. She was a cling-on for the next two days, never wanting to leave my side because she thought I might leave again for 10 weeks. She still talks about me not leaving again for so long when I tell her I have an overnight trip coming up. It is tough but that is part of the deal when you go to the NA, so you see it is important to bring your family up once and come home twice. That helped me a lot. My wife aside from missing me greatly was excited I returned. She did such a fantastic job running everything by herself while I was away. From the house, to school, to the pets, even Paxton our Lab who she had to put down while I was away, she did it all! I love her so much. Our neighbors Jason and Janelle disserve great thanks too. They did countless things to help my family while I was gone. I cant express my thanks enough. You need someone back home you can count on to help your family when the little things come up and we had no family in our area, they were the ones, thank you!

I took a couple of days to unpack and get back to normal at home before I went back to the office. Some people took a week on either end, too long for me. When I got back to work I gave out presents to everyone (swag from the NA gift store). My family got plenty too. It took two days to get my office set back up and back into a different but familiar work pace. I made sure to visit everyone around the Airport and they put out an email announcement that I was back after completing the NA. That made it easier. The paper did an article too, you see a lot of those. At the Airport CEO's meeting  I briefed everyone on my experience and what I learned. That was good to do because I could catch a lot of folks at once and tell them I appreciated their support too. I met with all my supervisors in my first staff meeting that week and briefed them too, thanking them for running the department while I was gone. I expressed how proud I was of the job they did. It was confirmation that I have excellent people in the organization. It also makes them confident that they can handle the department for 10 weeks with no problems. Your superiors see that too. The next week I was 100 % back to normal at work, except now using my NA education to better my agency each day. I use it every day now. It has become part of my professional self.

Would I do it all again... Yes
Would I change anything... No

Thank you for reading my blog. I plan to leave it as is. If someone gets promoted or something changes in my life then it will serve as a preservation in time, what happened to me in my life from July 2014 to September 2014 at the FBI National Academy.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. My information is in the blog and if you go thru the NA and are in the beautiful Sarasota, Florida area using our beautiful Airport please stop in and say Hi to me.

May God Bless You Always
Stay Safe!
James Carlino - FBINA 257