Fast-forward nearly 10 years. After 12 years, 3 completed BA majors and 2 graduate degrees (I know I overdid it a bit), I have finally decided that I am done with the noble pursuit of higher education. I am so done with higher education in fact that I no longer have any desire to pursue employment in the field that drove me through those last years of student loan applications and late night panic attacks. I am done, done, done. I am burnt toast done. All I can think of is the shock of the new.
And in so many ways my life is so totally new. Life as a companion has taken me by storm and swept me up in a whirlwind of self-reflection. Seemingly overnight I have been publicly transformed from a bookish semi-introvert into a sought after seductress. “O brave new world! That has such people in it! (William Shakespeare, The Tempest)” How can I resist this sexy new reality? I ponder my options, weigh the consequences and then shell out the money needed to fund a professional website and high-end photos.
I set my sights ahead of me 6 months and begin to dare to dream of a world outside of my cloistered apartment, greater than the next term paper or final. I pause, look around admire what I’ve accomplished. I see my cloistered apartment transform to a house with a yard. I witness my shoulders drop from earmuff status to their regular shoulder height. The intense insomnia I experienced while in the last months of my graduate degree begins to transform into a regular sleep schedule. I am feeling semi-human again. I am feeling liberated, energized. I am feeling like a new-hatched moth, ready to fan my wings and catch a breeze to life’s next adventure. I am feeling like it might be time to travel outside of the safe cocoon of Portland. Perhaps it is time to risk more; to dare more and to push past those preconceived boundaries I have constructed for myself. Perhaps it is time I go back to DC?
When I arrive at National I grab a taxi, not the metro, into town. It’s winter, the weather is cold and dry and the trees are naked but for a few brown and withered leaves that still cling to branches here and there. All the better. This bare plate better showcases the meat of the capitol. I openly gape at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the arching bridge that spans the Potomac. I beam at each new post card brought to life as we pass, The Lincoln Memorial, The Washington Monument, The Capitol Building. Then the taxi coasts through downtown, past a building with a glass room. The walls are tiled all in marble on the inside and lit from behind. What grace! What elegance! What a moment to be back in DC.
The cab pulls up in front of the Hotel Palomar, a geek sheik boutique hotel with a contemporary interior. Within minutes I am headed to my upgraded room. As I open the door I am greeted by an expanse of space. I reflect that it is larger than a studio apartment I once lived in while in grad school. I throw myself across the king sized mattress, taking in the large mirror adjacent. A wall of windows and the room’s tasteful décor is reflected within. There in the middle of that reflection is me, a slightly travel worn girl with a big goofy smile on her face. I’m back in DC and this time it is 100% on my own terms. I’ve cast my vote and found a balance within myself, a democracy of one.
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