My daughter is devastated and I don't know what to do

[AZTheta]

Perhaps I am the only one who remembers the high hopes and piercing disappointments felt at age 17, 18, and 19. I have compassion for that young woman. Yes she had choices left and I cannot be hypocritical and condemn her for dropping out of recruitment because they were not her dream. We tell PNMs conflicting information when we criticize them for dropping and we also criticize them for taking a bid and either being a less than enthusiastic member, or being unhappy, when "someone else would have loved your spot."

Can't have it both ways. Surely I am not the only one who says "if I can't have that, I don't want anything. I'll live with the consequences." That's pretty much what happened here. Let her mature a little and see what happens in the next year. She needs to figure this out and her mother is there to help her. Like Anne Lamott wrote, sometimes the best thing we can say is "me too" to validate another human being in times like this.

And I reiterate my "disappointment" speech (the one where I talk about how important it is for life lessons to hit us at an early age when we are able to have support and become resilient). I'm glad that I didn't get elected cheerleader in 8th grade. It was the end of the world at the time. I was crushed. But I developed some strategies and when other disappointments came, I was able to bounce back quickly. It also helped that I didn't always come in first in a swim race. Sometimes I came in last.