One whole year last week since my life took a shift I never anticipated. It’s weird to say “one year” when there were moments in the beginning that felt like time had frozen and the light at the end of the tunnel didn’t exist. It’s the week that set this year’s trajectory. I’m thankful for the pure unadulterated joy and peace that it brought, but the heartache was real, and it was really hard to get through.
Anniversaries are a gift of remembrance, and while I’ve moved on and have more peace in my life than ever before due to the Lord’s incredible grace, I thought it would be worth the time to sit down and remember the parts that hurt, some of the grief or moments of escape, but mostly how God carried me through at a time where I sometimes couldn’t stand at all.
When I sat down at my computer to write I didn’t know this would be the story that came out. I didn’t think tears would come to my eyes or that frustration and buried anger would make themselves known. So, as thoughts and emotion poured out I decided I just wanted to honor the experience by acknowledging it for myself and not letting it’s legacy be that of social media’s rose colored glasses. Those glasses we all have a bad habit of using to rewrite history.
NOVEMBER - ELECTION WEEK
I took time off work to volunteer on a campaign in North Carolina election week. I wanted the distraction, and maneuvering a difficult campaign contact while managing thirty other volunteers and students provided just that. I was so focused on making sure group A got to location A,B,C, or D that I didn’t have time to worry that I might be unemployed at the end of it all.
I spent my days running around, and in the evening I would unwind with my team leaders. We ate leftover birthday cake out of the pan and sat in hotel rooms, laughing about anything in our sleep deprived state. Not a lot of rest was had by anyone that week.
Election night provided a moment of respite. I was able to slip away from my team’s closing party with an old friend to run an errand. As a libertarian, they were pretty indifferent to how the election turned out, and it was nice to be around someone who cared more about how I was going to handle the outcome than who won. That selfish forty minute drive away from my responsibility and anyone’s expectations of how I was doing was one of my favorite moments during those months.
I went to bed hopeful I’d still have a job come January, and instead woke up to a new and unstable reality. We’re all aware of the chaos that ensued the following months post election day as the world decided if the “election had been stolen”, rumors spread across Facebook, by people who got their news updates from Facebook, that the President wasn’t going to step aside on Inauguration Day, people crossed lines this country never thought possible, and the world watched political games played at the expense of a Nation.
The week following the election, while we waited on Nevada, but ultimately knew the outcome, I disappeared into a small North Carolina town in the mountains; you know, the ones you see every Christmas on the Hallmark Channel, trying to think about anything but the electoral college or my future. I stayed in an Inn, lost my thoughts in the woods, and lived my life off the grid, if only for a moment, before heading back down that road to cell phone service and a job that was teetering on extinction.
D.C. had been my dream since I could remember. Whenever people asked where I wanted to end up I knew my answer with confidence. Somehow, I had actually made it though, and not only had I made it to the city, I made it to the White House, I worked directly with a U.S. Cabinet Secretary, and then I found the job and boss I had always hoped for in the Women’s Bureau.
Sixteen year old me would have been so proud.
It was a job. I was losing a job. That’s it.
NOVEMBER - MIDDLE
D.C. had been the dream, but I realized November 2020 that my version of D.C., the one that gave me access to the White House grounds and the ability to visit government buildings on a whim, the version I had stepped into and had been living since 2017, had never not included the Administration that was now disappearing.
I was losing the only version of my home I had ever known. It occurred to me that once we were out, so were the perks of popping in to see a friend or enjoying the AC of my old office in the middle of August. My entire way of living in my home was disappearing.
I remember watching social media day by day as the new tenants of our jobs and residents of our offices were announced one by one. It wasn’t personal, but it felt personal seeing your boss replaced with a bubble photo on an Instagram post highlighting Cabinet Secretary nominations. I made it all the worse for myself by diving into the smug and celebratory comments that decorated each post and in no uncertain terms made it clear how “they” felt about “us.” Oh, and those? Those were meant to be personal.
It didn’t matter who the replacements were, it just mattered that it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t staying the same it had been for the entire time of me knowing it.
It was a job. I was losing a job... but in that same exact moment I and hundreds of others were reduced back to tourist level in our own home.
NOVEMBER - THANKSGIVING
With the end of an Administration comes the scattering of thousands of political appointees. Some stay in the city. A lot go back to their home states. Our family, while sometimes dysfunctional, like any other, was going their separate ways.
In our case, we dealt with the additional layer that our Administration was leaving divided. The Vice President had his, and the President had his diehards, haters, and moderates that left sad yet full of mixed emotions of disappointment and/or possibly betrayal. This division in Administration left many cautious to share their stance or “side” with one another, while others became outspoken in the final weeks and suffered the consequences that came with that. The rippling effects of division caused many to grieve the loss, or shame, or change alone.
What a lot of people don’t realize about any outgoing Administration is that the political appointees are losing a lot more than just an election. Every appointee knows they are signing up for something with an inevitable end date, but that doesn’t make the end any less difficult. We lost life as we had known it. And the tendrils of any Administration reach further, whether we like it or not, into the personal lives of each and every one of us.
So… I lost my job, but I also dealt with the loss of friends either due to geography or political loyalties.
DECEMBER
In the months that followed, our political staff stuck together as much as we could. We delicately and cautiously asked leadership about next steps, but the election had yet to be certified, so all offboarding prep, help with new job placement, and support that would normally be provided to an outgoing Administration wasn’t available.
Leaving before the election was certified gave the appearance of bailing, higher-ups formally providing support for those looking for new jobs could be viewed as lacking faith in the Administration, and continuing like nothing had changed was impossible as the career staff had begun transition and continually asked us why we weren’t acting in suit to no response.
An entire Administration of appointees was careening toward unemployment with nothing to do but wait.
As we wrapped up projects and looked toward an uncertain end, the true colors of many of the career public servants, who were the majority in my office, came out. They had never really shied away from making their political preferences known, but with the two month anticipation of our exit, it got that much worse. Projects were intentionally delayed, meetings were missed or canceled, and direct requests were ignored. What could we do… it wasn’t like we would be here come January. This wasn’t everyone, and those career employees that upheld the integrity of their work and titles are well remembered, but those last months made me want to pull my hair out on more than one occasion.
So, I lost a job, but I also had to deal with the fact that as soon as I was out the door the majority of the projects we had worked so hard to accomplish were going to be unraveled to the best of the career staff’s ability. The sad part? Many of them didn’t actually disagree with what we had achieved… they simply couldn’t stand that our Administration was getting the credit.
JANUARY - INAUGURATION DAY
Many of my closest friends and confidants were on the other side of this election, and I had a lot of other friends ask me how I handled that, but it truly never bothered me. I respected their stance just as I asked them to offer me the same respect in return. I had my reasons for why I stood where I did on the political spectrum, and I knew they did as well. It was something I was very at peace with.
I knew I would be spending January 20th with people who were happy about the outcome, but never anticipated it would bother me. I knew what was coming, and I woke up ready to embrace it. 4 A.M. came and went. I had barely slept that night. I got dressed and drove with friends to Joint Base Andrews to see the President off on Airforce One one last time. I didn’t know what emotions to expect. At this point I honestly didn’t have any. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t happy. Looking back, I think the word I was looking for was numb. I wasn’t feeling any of it.
Excited to witness history, the crowd stood on the tarmac as the President and First Lady said their farewell to the Administration staff who had shown up. A friend texted me a news article later that day about the make-up of the crowd, and I can’t think of a better description:
“Administration veterans, supporters, some people he just fired, and some people who hate him but love to witness history.” That was the group.
People smiled, waved, some just stood there, many cheered in support, and others cried realizing what I hadn’t quite fully accepted yet. Everything was different as soon as that plane door closed.
No one was saying, “See you Monday!” or “Let’s get lunch next week to talk about that provision.” or even “Can you get me that report by COB?” No, they were hugging each other crying, saying last goodbyes before moves, and realizing that that co-worker they weren’t close with but had grown accustomed to seeing every day for years, wasn’t going to be sitting across from them come Thursday let alone a part of their life anymore. I don’t care where you stand politically. Change like that hurts, and I’ll feel for the appointees of the current Administration when they go through it too.
I went home, and turned on the TV to watch the inauguration. This was the moment it finally took. Reporters oohed and awed over every attendee and every aspect of the event. Outfits were perfect, speeches were breathtaking, the world was brighter, even a fumble by a speaker was praised and “made the day more human.” Everyone who had hated everything our Administration had done for four years celebrated the most minute detail of this historic day. With the flip of a switch nothing was wrong, and everything was right.
I hated it, and I hate to admit it, but it made my blood boil seeing the love they were receiving, while knowing and feeling the pain they had caused us for years.
I know it wasn’t me being criticized for four years. The Administration was, people I knew, leaders I respected and worked under, and I was an extension of that, so while we buried it deep and kept our heads high, it stung. The criticism of us breathing stung. Knowing we were doing good, sometimes even bipartisan, work but because it was under our name it was awful, stung. Were there legitimate things and moments to criticize? Of course. This is true of every Administration and every one to come whether die hard party members want to admit it or not. But to see the double standard so clearly evident on my television screen after saying goodbye to everything I had known that morning was one of the worst moments of my life.
The rest of the day the inauguration played on repeat in the apartment. I wanted to escape it, but couldn’t, so I put my headphones in and I baked.
I hated that I was mad. I didn’t want this feeling of bitterness to stick around. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I wanted my friends to notice I was falling apart, but at the same time I wanted them to enjoy their day. So, I put my head down, turned my music up, and prayed for the strength to get up the next day.
JANUARY - EVERYTHING AFTER
The brain is funny how it will connect dots even when you don’t want it to. It’s trying to make sense of emotions that we can’t comprehend, trying to find answers to things that don’t always have, and in the weeks that followed I found myself trying to rewire the connection it had made to account for my grief.
Like I said, our Administration left divided, so we were all going through different emotions and finding comfort in one another was rare. I felt alone in a lot of ways. It wasn’t because people weren’t around, it was because no one could really understand what was going on, and I didn’t know how to vocalize any of it past D.C. didn’t feel like home anymore, friends were gone, and I didn’t have a job.
At the time I didn’t even call it grief. Naming it came after coffee with a dear friend who had also been in the Administration. I am forever grateful she validated that I wasn’t crazy, and that it was okay to call it what it was. That was one of the most lifegiving conversations I had during those early months, and I believe one of the turning points toward moving forward.
I think I thought that I just had to get past the Inauguration, and then I could move forward. The dust would settle, and life would go on. But I quickly realized that living in the Capital is one of the worst places to be when the last thing you want to talk about is politics. It was on my phone, when I went into the city, and it even crept into most conversations with friends and family.
I felt a bitterness growing in me that I actively could acknowledge, but couldn’t seem to shake, and this feeling reared its head in the form of “blaming” my pain on those I knew that were happy about the outcome. To be clear, I didn’t actually blame them, but I knew I didn’t want to find comfort in them because it felt... shallow.
It didn’t matter what they said, my head was telling me if it weren’t for people like them, I wouldn’t be dealing with this. Again, I don’t actually blame them, but it was hard to be around them when the mere existence of the thing they celebrated was the cause of my grief.
I realized that their moment of praise of the new team coincided with the bitterness I had felt on Inauguration day. I would have normally enjoyed talking about the return of dogs at the White House, but because of how I saw the double standard, I didn’t want to give them any ounce of praise even if they did deserve it.
Oddly enough, I also didn’t want to criticize the new Administration, because I knew first hand how that level of hate can wear a person down. So, I internalized my anger and pain, and I focused on how “I” could make it better. Depression, anxiety, and my relationship with food have long been problems in my life, and the worst of it normally comes out in times when I have no control of an outcome. So that’s what I was trying to do. I was trying to control the outcomes that I could. I made lists, I pushed my body to workout even when I knew I was hurting it more, and I frantically began making plans for next steps by applying to every opportunity I could.
My roommate came into my room one day while I was sitting on my bed and without sugarcoating it said, “We’ve been friends for a long time. I’ve seen you when you’re good, and I’ve seen you when you’re not, and I know it's really bad right now.” I tried to convince myself she was wrong, but I knew she wasn’t, I knew it wasn’t going to get better while I stayed in D.C.
(So, I went to Hawaii for three months, but that’s a whole other blog post that’s also too long.:))
TODAY
It has taken a LOT of healing and a LOT of God to get to where I am today, and I’m so incredibly grateful for how the Lord has been guiding my path this year in order to equip me for what’s next. I understood the word trust before, but I didn’t understand how to apply it to my life until there was no option but to give it all up to God, and every step since has been lifegiving and a testament to God’s grace.
I’m not gonna lie and say that it doesn’t feel a little good to hear the media criticize the current Administration, or see people on the other side openly upset when certain decisions have been made. This is something I’m working on. But when that criticism happens I remember that there are people on the other side that are just like me. They feel the hate. They are called ridiculous names. They feel the sting of the media just like I did. I’ve realized that while what I and many others went through was unjust and absolutely sucked, it has helped me to humanize politics.
I’ve unplugged a lot this year. I’ve stayed informed, but also realized that it’s okay to step out of the game and pursue a life outside of politics. I felt like I was running away when I left D.C., and maybe I was, but over this year I’ve discovered that, with God’s very involved directing, I was actually running toward a version of myself that He crafted and intended for me to find.
So, I lost a Jo… Heck, I lost a lot, but I also found and gained more than I could have ever planned for myself, and that? That’s all God.
It’s been one year, and while writing this has felt like opening a time capsule, I feel like I’m writing about someone I used to know, and that’s a really really good feeling.
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