Swearing-In

My classmates and I gathered on Friday for our official swearing-in. The rumor mill was abuzz earlier in the day when our class mentor leaked the fact that the Secretary would be swearing us in!

Unfortunately, Elise, Sam and Pete were in Florida and couldn't make it. I would fly down to meet them early the next morning. My flight left at 5:45. I was woken at 3:30 a.m. by a text message from Elise asking me to remember to bring her tripod. It could only have meant that Pete was up, too. I knew I wasn't going to fall back to sleep, so I showered, got ready and headed downstairs to the parking garage. We had just bought a new-used car on Wednesday night and since I hadn't been down to the garage in three days, had trouble finding it. A lot of trouble. Like, it wasn't there! In a panic, I ran up and down the ramps of the parking garage, frantically scanning the cars for ours, but it--most assuredly--had vanished.

I dashed upstairs. The clock was ticking. My plane was to taxi down the runway in less than an hour! I asked the guy at the front desk if there was any possibility the car could have been towed. He responded in a lackluster groan, "...Could've..." and handed me a slip of paper with the name and number of a tow company on it. I called, struggling to keep the panic out of my voice. Sure enough, the car had been towed because I had forgotten to get a new parking decal. It had been in the lot since Wednesday night and was now blocked in by 5 other wayward vehicles. the nearest truck was 15 minutes away and it was going to take him at least that long to tow the other cars out of my car's way. He did make it and I watched anxiously as he disassembled the sideways Tetris puzzle of intertwined towed vehicles to extricate our new-used Outback.

I flew down the GW Parkway and sprinted through Reagan just in time to make the plane, ditching the car in the hourly lot (which would later cost me $70).

BUT before any of this could happen, I had to get sworn-in...

The ceremony began with a show of appreciation for our friends and family. This, I thought, especially apt. I had underestimated how hard it would be to get to this day, but each day already gets better and each obstacle is already easier to vault than the last, and the key to continuing to make this so doesn't lie in appreciation of the big picture, but attenuation to the small daily wonders that populate this blog: dump trucks and cranes, airplanes and flat tires and warm cups of coffee that never seem to wake us up enough. These things are and will be what keeps us going.

The Secretary was late, so our class mentor provided filler. Earlier in the day, she had regaled us with yarns from her time spent as ambassador to Tajikistan. Including wild tales spent in the court of Turkmenbashi the Great which involved shots of vodka, pork chops and the intervention of a Good Samaritan in disguise as the Armenian ambassador. I was hoping for another Turkenbashi story, but as she ran out of things to say, she opened the floor to us.

One of my classmates wished his mother a happy 59th birthday. She stood and bowed embarrassingly. And another of my classmates expressed his appreciation for having been given a second chance. This was his second go-around. His second class and his second swearing-in. I never found out what his story was or had separated him from our work the first time around, but I did find out that he felt extremely blessed to have been given a second chance, noting that he had quickly discovered that normal life has become quote "simply unbearable".

I don't at all mean to sound as though I don't appreciate the sacrifice the Secretary made to be with us that day or appreciate the honor she bestowed upon us as we begin this journey, but I won't remember much of the Secretary's address, but I will remember the sacrifices my family made to get me here, Turkembashi the Great and the words of my peers.