An Essay on Character
Hanging out with my twin sister in Breckenridge a couple months ago,
being unemployed was not a problem. We mountain-biked, went camping,
and drank beer with absurdly high alcohol content that I had not seen
since my days of cross-border raids into Belgium. Job? What job? My
sister's Breck friends embrace that freedom with the same vigor they
tackle ski runs.
Washington, DC, is quite a different story. If DC were a guy he'd
constantly be talking about his work and would feel naked without a
tie. I'm pretty much waiting for a little airplane to sky-write
"UNEMPLOYED!" with a perfectly drawn finger in the heavens pointing
down at me. That is what being a jobseeker in DC feels like. Rather
than eating humble pie, it's like free-basing humble heroine. In a few
short months I have gone from a bilingual, Masters-holding, respected,
work-is-my-life management position overseas to swimming in a sea of
overqualified professionals who have two Masters or speak three
languages. I've thought what a character-building experience this is.
That thought was immediately followed by another thought: "Screw
that." Congo hammered a certain amount of character in me that I feel
should suffice for at least a year. Is unemployment really going to
provide some sort necessary humbling that I didn't garner while lying
in intensive care in a hospital in a third world country with only
three IV drips for company (a day before which a friend shot me in the
butt with anti-malarial drugs and an Indian colonel held back my hair
as I gracelessly vomited at a military base)? Character, that devilish
friend, is always on the look out for a new "in."
Still, I smiled when I woke up with a headache this morning. No panic
that it might be malaria. I simply reached for my Advil. Moving back
to America was about my need to change my lifestyle, and maybe I
forgot that the comforts of my home country would be combined with the
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