Note:
This is the story of our final road trip west as we leave Virginia and DC and put our Foreign Service life in the rearview.
This journey allowed time - a LOT of time - to be struck by and to reflect on how this career shaped me, what it all meant, and what we're heading towards.
The Final Pack Out
How can it possibly be so mentally and physically exhausting to watch other people, six to be exact, wrap and pack every thing we own while we sit and watch? Grab thing, wrap in paper, put into a box, repeat repeat repeat. Without hesitation, the packers recognize what needs extra protection, whip out a box cutter and custom slice a cardboard sleeve to protect a bit of the whatsit that sticks out. Squeeeeal goes the packing tape as it's pulled off the roll, securing the cardboard wrapped around the wooden coat rack, and the ceramic planter we picked out in Juarez, and that odd shaped carving from Romania. Again and again. It's a disturbing noise that echoes through the steadily emptying apartment. They wrap the furniture last in heavy quilts pulled from an enormous stack that two of the guys brought up draped across the back of their necks from the moving van. Cobijas they call them - blankets - which sounds quite cozy for the furniture.
This is our 11th pack out and we go through the motions on muscle memory. This move is different as everything we own is being packed up. There's no spare room we can hide out in, reading or napping on whatever furniture will stay behind. Now, the more they pack, the more the ground beneath our feet is eroded away until there's nowhere left to sit or stand that's out of their way. I'm left leaning against the living room wall like a mop. We've moved the two cats, suitcases, and any necessities we could squeeze into the car to a cheap motel across town for our final nights. From under the motel room bed, the cats are oblivious to the dismantling of all they're familiar with. It's hard enough to take in for those of us who understand.
By 5:15 the swarm of locusts has emptied the apartment, and the moving van and crew are heading back to Maryland where the van will be unloaded into a warehouse. We're left with a box of cleaning supplies and a broom I'll leave behind. I sweep up the detritus on the floor: bits of cardboard, tape, and cat hair tumbleweeds finally freed from behind the bookshelves and tumbling across the living room. I also sweep away four years of our lives spent in this apartment and say goodbye to the 75 foot willow oak trees, the reach of their branches filled our windows and comforted me from my bed each morning. It's time to move on again.
On March 8 this year, I decided to leave the Department and the career I'd considered the professional high watermark of my life. Beyond the work, and in fact more than the work, our Foreign Service life brought my husband and me friends and adventures we would never have known if we had stayed in our small Western Washington town. And now all I can do is count down the days until we pull back into that little town: 37 to be exact. Besides the two of us and our two cats, the fifth character in this story is our car, our faithful 2011 Ford Escape bought 13 years ago. It has accompanied us to three of our overseas posts, including making cross-country drives to and from Mexico. It's easy to fool myself that this is just another vacation, another adventure - but it's not. This one is indelible.
I feel I'm turning my back on a place I no longer recognize and can't bear to see in ruin, averting my eyes before the building collapses. The State Department that hired me in 2011 is currently a hand puppet of its former self with someone else's hand up its backside, making it say things it doesn't believe, that are contrary to its values, yet is impotent to stop. I feel some shame for not sticking it out as my colleagues are, doing their part to keep the nose of the plane level. However, even stronger is the feeling that I'm turning towards something I've been longing for: a quieter life, a more outdoors life, a life under my own direction and creative control where the standards used to evaluate myself, my worth, and my capabilities are my own.
Road Trip Day 1: Arlington, VA to Streetsboro, OH
We are concerned about how the cats will be in the car for more than a short trip, their car experience thus far. Fortunately, they're doing very well and it seems we may have won the traveling cat lottery with no peeing, barfing, or yowling. But it's only day one. We put their carriers side-by-side on the folded-down car seats with a litter box, bowl of kibble, and potted catnip plant in front of them. A little opium den to keep spirits mellow, if you will. I open their carrier doors and twist around in my seat to observe. Seamus cautiously steps out and begins to sniff around. Bridget curls into a cinnamon bun and tells us to wake her when we're there.
We leave Arlington, then Virginia, then Maryland, and hit Pennsylvania by lunch, Ohio by late afternoon. Our refueling and lunch stop is a no-souvenirs or postcards kind of truck stop that doesn't even have picnic tables. We can't leave the the cats in their car while we tuck into Reuben sandwiches and side salads in the diner. Instead, we stop along the edge of the parking lot and raid our cooler. Ham sandwich and apple in hand, I hop the guardrail and scramble up a grassy hill to sit under a lone tree. Better.
Pennsylvania is green, very green, with corn fields lining both sides of the interstate, punctuated with huge white or red gambrel barns and tall, silver silos. I had a wooden farm set like this as a kid where I could rearrange the pieces across a blanket printed with fields, lanes, trees, and streams. The resemblance astounds me and the memory makes me wistful for those easy days.
I'm so concentrated on the landscape zipping by the window that it's easy for me to forget we're leaving places we've called home for many years. In our 14.5 years in the Foreign Service, we've spent nearly six in Virginia, between two domestic assignments and many training stints. Virginia has always been a "see you later" place, but this time is different. We may not see you later. Our friends there now, like us, also may not be there forever. I ease myself with promises of catching up with them elsewhere and wash it down with a good dose of denial. After all, we're used to this routine: pack up, say goodbye, move on, unpack, figure it out, settle in, hit your stride, pack up, say goodbye, move on.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
By early evening we pull into Streetsboro, OH, not far from Cleveland. It's our first of many questionable motel choices where I won't be walking barefoot on the carpet, but it's sufficient for the night. With the car unpacked and the cats once again hidden under the bed, we leave to find dinner at one of many strip malls off the broad boulevard fronting the motel. Tonight will be BBQ sandwiches and eavesdropping on conversations from people in Ohio State sweatshirts. It's Saturday and OSU has scored a big football win; spirits are high. Folks are setting down their beers to throw axes at targets at the edge of the dining patio and toss beanbags into cornhole boards - things I'd be really bad at.
So is this what regular folks do? Are these our peers now?
Road Trip Day 2: Streetsboro, OH to Elk Grove Village, IL
Ohio farms are beautiful and lush and look prosperous. We appreciate also that the turnpike tolls can be paid in cash to friendly toll takers in toll booths, imagine that. Pennsylvania and Illinois aren't as obliging and I start taking notes on how to pay these tolls online after the fact. We cross the top of Indiana which, despite my esteem for Pete Buttigieg, I find visually underwhelming. But they also let us pay tolls in cash, so we forgive them and keep moving on.
On the western outskirts of Chicago we pull into another sketchy motel whose name ends in a number and unpack the cats and car. This takes close to an hour each morning for pack-up and each evening for unpack, 18 times for this trip. Urgh. But we're starting to develop a system and haven't yet locked the keys in the car or left anything/anyone behind. In a pre-dinner wander, I find a serene little pond beside the motel, wedged between the rush-hour interstate and a row of industrial warehouses, directly under O'Hare's flight path. I sit on a bench under a willow tree and watch a white heron wading in slow-motion in the shallow water. With this, I pretend it's pretty nice.
We were excited to have dinner plans with a good friend from El Salvador and his family. He and my husband worked side by side in the Embassy for three years, laughing and ribbing each other like brothers. Our friend is a dual U.S.-Salvadoran citizen and with his wife now a green card holder, they made the difficult decision to leave tropical El Salvador for the cold winters and steamy summers of urban and expensive Chicago with their young children. His consular experience as a locally employed staff member was key to getting a good job with USCIS. With pizza slices in hand, we listened to his stories about interviewing asylum seekers from around the world. My consular heart grew two times bigger just hearing his experiences and we peppered the conversation with immigration form names and numbers and INA sections. I spent so many years marinating in this world, keeping on top of changes in law and processes, I wonder if that part of my brain will just dry up from neglect? Will this body of knowledge become like that once-loved dress in my closet that is now uselessly out of date and size?
Road Trip Day 3: Elk Gove Village, IL to Rochester, MN
This day takes us through a long stretch of Wisconsin before our overnight in Rochester, Minnesota. Wisconsin: America's Heartland! Why not America's Stomachland? No shame. That's really what they specialize in, with that uninterrupted horizon of fertile farmland dedicated to filling my belly with dairy delights. It's quite beautiful and early September offers a very hospitable climate to boot.
I insist we detour through downtown Madison to relive a fond memory from the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. My father took me on a college campus tour of the Great Lakes region and in just a half-day visit, I became enamored with Madison and it's lakeside purview. My memory is shaky as to why I didn't apply to become a Badger, but likely they didn't offer the degree I was considering. Cruising through downtown and an unending horizon of university buildings a few decades later, I fall for the city again. I start to wonder what path my life would have taken had I gone there instead. We have a quick tailgate lunch overlooking one of the lakes with the cats staying cool in the shaded car and agree we could live here. Ask us again in February.
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| State capital and city lakeside skyline |
Two hours north of Madison, I-90 bends to the west and delivers us across the Mississippi River and into Minnesota. We pull into a manicured rest stop along the mighty river for a look around. I stretch my legs on a walking path leading to the water's edge and meet a neatly dressed man in a polo shirt buttoned to the collar, his fishing rod and tackle box carried in both hands. Unable to resist engagement with a safe-looking stranger, I break the ice with the typical "Soooo... what are you catching these days?" I've forgotten his reply as instantly I zero in on his accent; it's a bit of a compulsion, I'll admit. Central or Eastern Africa, for sure. More fish questions and finally I have to confirm my guess about where he's from. I learn his name is Vernon and he's a truck driver here in Minnesota, but says he's originally from Zambia. "From Lusaka?" I ask, his face registering great surprise and then a broad smile. "Yes!" We chat another beat and then I wish him good fishing and safe driving and we part ways.
I recognized Vernon's accent from 2022 when I had been offered the Consular Chief job in Lusaka, Zambia. My husband and I were excited at the prospect of the new adventure and a chance to return to south-central Africa. (I'd backpacked through the region in 2002 and my husband was a Peace Corps volunteer in the nearby-ish Central African Republic.) I gave my husband Zambian guidebooks at Christmas and we began listening to Zambian radio station streams, getting used to the accent, rhythm, the local phrases. It was about then that a voice inside me cleared its throat and quietly questioned how much longer I wanted to continue in this career. It was a voice I had been trying to ignore or rationalize away recently. With a plum assignment in hand to a coveted country - what was the issue? The issue was that I was following someone else's career plan, not my own. When I was honest with myself, this next logical step in my career progression was a bigger job than I wanted. I saw myself run ragged to keep up the guise of polished competence, work phone in hand or always in reach during off hours lest I miss something and respond later than immediately. I didn't see a place for the explorer, the stranger engager, the sometimes silly and occasionally inappropriate storytelling creative type that is ME, my default setting. I broke the assignment seven months before we were due to arrive. The pure relief I felt after being released from that job put the taste, like a drop of an illicit elixir, of freedom onto my tongue that I would savor for the next three years.
Until today, I had never met a Zambian in the United States - why now? Was his presence on that riverbank purely coincidental or meant to remind me of that epiphany from 2022 and to reassure me that I was on the right path? Perhaps the latter, but it also made me regretful of a road not taken and melancholy about a country we would never serve in. Why does everything have to have a flip side?
We hit Rochester by early evening and find our nicest motel so far. As I'm complimenting it, I'll say its name: La Quinta Inn and Suites. Clean, modern, friendly, great staff, full breakfast, clean carpets and they give us the largest room in the joint. I think we could move in and the cats wouldn't mind. The location is uninspiring: near the interstate alongside a commercial plaza with grocery stores, a Toyota dealership, and close enough to grab some dinner without making the car move any further than necessary. Not scenic, but practical.
Road Trip Day 4: Still Rochester
The morning's weather forecast is predicting rain for our drive today, the first we've had in a very long time, and we have a long stretch of middle-of-nowhere ahead of us. My husband reminds himself that he needs to change the wiper blades on the car and heads out to do so while I see what's on offer in the breakfast room. It's a pretty good spread, better than we've had so far for sure. I notice mostly older couples in the room, cups of coffee or orange juice in hand while they wait their turn at the automatic waffle maker. Then I notice the sign for the free shuttle from the hotel to the Mayo Clinic and my impression of our fellow hotel guests softens in empathy. I'm finishing my scrambled eggs and a second cup of tea when I realize it is taking my husband an inordinate amount of time to change out the wipers. Hmmm... Moments later, he finds me in the dining room and strides directly to my table, moving like a guy who has something important to say or do. I set down the plastic fork.
Using a measured voice that is equal parts "I don't want you to worry" with "Let me be clear that this is not good but I'm taking care of it" he tells me there's something wrong with the car and we've got to stay another night. He found the car with a piece of the undercarriage hanging down and an impressive puddle of...fluid? drained over the right front axle.
"I've taken it next door to the Toyota dealership and they're going to look at it and let us know. They're going to try to squeeze us in by noon." Understood. Taking up my fork, I scarf the final bites of now-cold eggs and transition into our unspoken division of labor: he takes care of mechanical stuff; I'm on lodging, pets, and provisions. The kind front desk clerk rebooks us into the same fancy room for a second night and for some reason the rate has gone down a few bucks.
I've always been lucky in my bad luck, and having this happen 100 yards from a dealership, while we're ensconced in a nice hotel with a cheap rate, the cats having fun in the spacious room, and walking distance to a grocery store - we really couldn't complain. We did, however, just a bit when the damage was relayed from the dealership. A splash guard had come loose and fallen onto the CV axle boot, rubbing a hole in it and letting all the lovely lubricant ooze all over everything. No bueno, but a half day and $900 bucks later and she is good to go. We now have a day to rest and with a steady rain falling, it seems only prudent to visit the hotel's indoor pool and hot tub.
We are joined in the hot tub by large Thad, a bearded and tattooed 31-year old from North Dakota here for diagnosis of something unknown with his heart. I know these details, as he tells us outright. Despite his circumstances, he's a jovial and open guy and the three of us chat in the hot tub longer and to a far more personal level than we anticipated when we swung our towels over our shoulders and walked towards the hot tub.
"It's the Bakken that did this to me."
"Come again?" I ask.
Thus begins a fascinating description of the vast area covering much of the U.S. northern plains and two Canadian provinces, the men that work in the oil and gas fields there, and the things they do to themselves to keep up with the 60-90 hour work weeks of intense labor. We agree with his speculation as to the cause of his heart condition. He's fortunate that he has a wife and two daughters willing to settle there and soften his life in what sounds like a post-apocalyptic wild west. He's young, strong and we wish him the best care. I regret regaling him earlier with our tales of "but it's all fixed now" mechanical woe.
Road Trip Day 5: Rochester, MN to Chamberlain, SD
We're back in business and I take the wheel for the first half of our drive across the rest of southern Minnesota and into South Dakota. Of all the segments of our trip, this is the one I'm looking forward to the most, as South Dakota is the only state in the continental United States I haven't yet visited. Besides, we're booked to stay at a funky mom-and-pop motel alongside the mighty Missouri River and the state has some pretty awesome sights we plan to hit tomorrow. Two hours west of Rochester, the scenery looks like this:
And then like this:
With the smooth sailing, Seamus occupies himself surfing the roof of his carrier as car captain. Bridget reminds us to wake her when we get there.
There are still a few hours of daylight left when we hit Chamberlain, SD and park in front of our room in the charming-and-as-funky-as-expected A Bridge View Inn. After unpacking and settling the cats, my husband grabs a pillow and I grab my camera to stroll along the lazily moving Missouri, taking in the motel's namesake vista. It's a generally quiet town, but especially now as we later learn from the 17 year old waitress as she takes our dinner order. They're between fishin' and huntin' seasons, but soon - this place will be rockin'! Seeing the giant truck-and-boat parking lot and adjacent overflow lot - we're inclined to believe her.
I wonder what life here is like and picture myself on the porch of one of the Victorian houses we pass on the walk home from dinner. Right now the slow pace feels soothing, but what about the following week? I have a sneaking suspicion that the level of stimulus I've grown accustomed to has set my engine idle far too high to be satisfied in this environment for long, plus I'm not much of a hunter or fisher. The next morning I stare at the sunrise reflecting off the bridge while sipping tea from a paper cup and feel satisfied to be moving on.
Road Trip Day 6: Chamberlain, SD to Gillette, WY
It takes just under two hours of driving due west for the topography to change dramatically. The first indication that the plains are giving way to something else comes in the form of jagged bluffs appearing suddenly on the horizon:
The Badlands sneak up on us, not because we don't know they would be there, but because we've had only gentle undulations beyond the windshield since we left Virginia. Seeing them growing in height and focus in the distance speaks clearly to me that we are certainly in The West. Apparently crossing the Mississippi and then the Missouri Rivers weren't clues enough of this much-anticipated literal and symbolic transition; the scenery now looks like the Wild West and it's undeniable we are nowhere near DC and all that comes with it. We pull into the Badlands National Park and stop at the first viewpoint. The raw, eroded peaks look as if someone turned the grassy plain inside out, showing us what should normally be under the surface. From the highest overview, we wind down to the valley floor and see the same peaks from ground level on the immersive 39-mile park loop road.
The day has more wildness in store for us as we curve up and around the South Dakota Black Hills, through infamous Sturgis, and wind through the piney woods to find Devil's Tower, our first stop in Wyoming.
The wind had been battering the car most of the day and amped to an alarming velocity as we entered the high, dry plateau of northeastern Wyoming. We find our hotel in downtown Gillette and begin the unpacking and stuff-shuttling routine. I accidentally litter a stack of napkins from inside the car as upon opening the door it is ripped from my grip. The napkins are vacuumed instantly across the street and out of sight before I can even react to grab them. Everything around us looks tough and this is clearly a testosterone-centric town and economy. From the roughnecks that work on the oil and gas rigs, to the coal and uranium miners, to the ranchers stringing barbwire in this wind - and snow - Wyoming means business. It has no room for people who whine about littering napkins or pick their navels about no longer being diplomats.
Road Trip Day 7: Gillette, WY to Livingston, MT
The prior night's winds are temporarily abated and we hit the interstate once again, this time heading north through the corner of Wyoming and into eastern Montana. Like Texas, one doesn't drive through Montana in one day (at least we don't), and so we aim to make it to just north of Yellowstone Park today, home to the most expensive cheap motels of our trip.
From the passenger seat, I send a friend in DC a few photos and updates of our progress thus far. I include a snap of last night's sunset, taken as we waited to cross the street on the way to dinner.
"Beautiful, but do they not sell sedans in Wyoming?" she asks.
"Sedans are for pussies or Commie liberals." I add.
"And vegetarians."
We have a good emoji laugh, but I acknowledge that the further west we get into these wide-open spaces, into the pine, sage, and cow-poop smelling countryside - the more soothing the trip becomes. I ask how she's adjusting to her new assignment, her first inside Main State, aka the State Department's headquarters in DC.
She responds, "Surely (your trip is) more fun than having to think about what could possibly be in your work email every morning. Smelling cow poop sounds divine to me."
With that, my stomach clenches just remembering how I felt at work more often than not, and particularly when summiting the steep learning curve of a new assignment. That dread of knowing there's more work to be done than time in the day, not including the regular injection of tasks from some higher office, usually with tight deadlines and little guidance on how to accomplish them. The environment kept my pot of anxiety continually on slow simmer, bubbling away. Some folks thrive under this kind of pressure and relish the challenge of training with live ammunition. I'm far too risk-adverse to be one of them. My last ambassador, while making his rounds through the embassy once said, "This is the best job in the world. If you're not having fun - something's wrong!" While I appreciated the reminder of the really cool things we did indeed have our hands in, it was the last part of his declaration that worried me. Was there something wrong with me that I wasn't always having fun?
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| The Yellowstone River - our companion for many miles |
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| Livingston, MT |
This wasn't the first time I'd taken a leap of faith in my life by heading west. In fact, it was the third.
The first time was a year after college. I was living in New York City with three friends in a one-bedroom apartment and commuting to an entry-level job at a Wall Street travel agency in my own version of Melanie Griffith's late '80s "Working Girl" in tennies and ankle socks and my career girl suit. After just a few months, the "check engine" light on my soul came on and I quit the job, ditched the suit, and got hired over the phone to be a wrangler at a guest ranch in Colorado, sight-unseen.
The second time was after another college graduation, this time with an Equine Studies degree spurred on by the Colorado ranch experience. I got on the Amtrak in Boston and got off in Spokane, WA to start a job at a horse training and lesson barn. Each of these moves west were made with an unwavering instinct that I was both doing the right thing and was going to be okay, despite the long list of unknowns. Gazing out the window at Montana's unmistakable "western-ness," I was struck by the parallel and while choking back tears, concluded that this time, too, I had made the right decision and all would be okay.
Road Trip Day 8: Livingston, MT to Haugan, MTLast night's sketchy motel does not live up to the adjective that is the first word in its name. In fact, the only thing super about it is the super-sized room rate, given our location at the gateway to Yellowstone. (It's a long gate, btw, as visitors are still an hour's drive to the park entrance.) In the morning, nearly $200 later, we pack up once more and drive five hours deeper into the wildfire smoke to one of those roadside attraction motels whose signs taunt drivers for hours before they arrive with promises of silver dollar winnings at their casino and all the pies and souvenirs you could want. It does not disappoint. Even the cats agree, as the lovely woman at the front desk gives us a basket of cat toys and treats and their own blanket for the pleasure of staying. All this and pie, too? I vow to buy something from the gift shop.
Road Trip Day 9: Haugan, MT to Manson, WA
Over a hearty breakfast including basketball-diameter pancakes whose calories I certainly haven't earned sitting in our car for a week, I gaze out at the evergreens surrounding the restaurant and get wistful again. There has been a lot of that lately. I remember a conversation with a dear colleague in El Salvador. She was in my office one morning and I was recounting the details of some day trip my husband and I had taken and showing her my photos when she smiled and stepped back.
"You don't want to do all this," she waved a hand around my desk and office.
"You want to do THAT," she pointed to the photo on my computer.
Her comment silenced me. I knew she was right, but I couldn't say it out loud yet. However, I was secretly thrilled that someone else had recognized it, so it must be true.
Back on the interstate, we pass an important milestone:
Followed by a brief dash across the narrow bit at the top of Idaho:
We are not only in the west, but specifically the Pacific Northwest with all its pine, fir, and cedar-scented goodness. With its moss-covered trees and steep grades on the interstate. I choke up a bit again as we cross into Washington and are surrounded by cars with Washington plates, guys in Seahawks jerseys, and exits for towns I've visited. Otis Orchards, Spokane Valley, Airway Heights, Davenport, Grand Coulee. We'd made it. No more saying Washington STATE when asked where we're from. No more explaining where we plan to retire, "Oh, you won't have heard of it; it's a little town 27 miles north of Seattle."
These are our peeps and this our state. We're home.
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| Freshly harvested Central Washington wheat fields |
First there is a little matter of one month to kill as we wait for our tenants to move out of our house. We have rented an A-frame cabin along the shore of Lake Chelan, surrounded by an apple orchard. The sinewy, 50-mile long lake is tucked into the eastern slope of the Cascade range that divides the big cities, mossy, damp, and evergreen Western Washington from the drier, agricultural heart that makes up the other two-thirds of the state. We bring the cats in from the car for the penultimate time and introduce them to their first set of stairs. Bridget takes to being a loft dwelling lioness immediately; Seamus hides under the downstairs bed for a few days before gaining his courage to explore. The month passes with a routine of morning yoga and walks in the orchard, afternoons sitting on the dock reading or tossing a line into the lake, slicing apples for maybe too many apple crisps, and definitely too many days on the phone going through the bureaucracy of reinstating our civilian lives in Washington: insurance, car registration, utilities, changes of address, finding doctors and dentists, and even a wee bit of job searching. The wildfire smoke continues to plague us with air quality indexes occasionally matching Delhi or Beijing, and then with a wind shift - leaving us with crystal clear views of our stunning surroundings.
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| Our temporary orchard home |
At exactly the crest of Steven's Pass, as we begin to descend, the first raindrops hit the windshield. Welcome to Western Washington.
Finally, we exit the highway.
That afternoon we pull into the driveway of our own house and the property manager meets us to return the keys. We unlock the front door and step into the house for the first time since we bought it years ago and turned over the keys for her to rent out.
And just like that, we return to our regularly-scheduled life, already in progress.
Final Thoughts
I hold my years in the Foreign Service as the most personally and professionally challenging period of my almost six decades of life. Without the educational or work experience that typically leads to such a career, it was only by dogged determination and a summer of studying that I got there. With my husband and our original three tabbies in tow, then our two new kitties, we had adventures and experiences that gave color, texture, and excitement to our lives. We made wonderful friends, heard fascinating stories, learned languages, and along the way absorbed more about our own country and four others and foreign relations than I'd ever have anticipated. (I still love to geek out on all things immigration law!) I was tenured and promoted twice, but damn it wasn't an easy ride. The mix of adrenaline, accomplishment, and gratitude I felt for simply being selected and trusted to represent the country carried me through the inherent stress of being continually in movement, being on some section of the learning curve, always changing and adapting, rarely resting. But all the while, I felt I was wearing someone else's suit, a uniform I was proud to wear that garnered respect and credibility, but didn't feel like my own.
It's now time for a new chapter and my own set of clothes.
