4:11 and the sun is setting in my office. The light slants across my keyboard, and I’m typing away. Listening to a conference call with some of the most annoying people I’ve ever met. The big boss around here is leading the call and is So! Perky! And! Fake! I can’t stand people like this. To sum it up, this is a woman who makes more money than the president of the united states, and still talks in baby talk like she’s just a gosh-darn, good ol’ gal y’all. And then can turn mean as a snake in 20 seconds.

But, eh. I’ve dealt with worse, I’ll deal with many more like her in the years to come.

Elizabeth posted this quote this morning, and I very rarely ever stop and consider the weight of words of a quote anymore. It feels like I’ve heard every platitude under the sun by now, and these days, I feel too rushed and frantic to pause.

Do not be overwhelmed by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."

-The Talmud

Working in healthcare policy right now is very hard. It’s been hard, from almost the moment I had this dropped in my lap in 2006 and it took off into this career I’ve grown into. This city is in firing squad mode about healthcare.gov, and I have friends and colleagues in the government that feel more like indentured servants than employees. One testified on the Hill yesterday, and since his summons to appear before Congress came, he’s slept on the floor of his office. It just sounds like a nightmare over there right now. Don't get me wrong -- this needs to be fixed. It should have never happened this way. Things could have been done so much better.

I touch Obamacare’s reimbursement/insurance/payment issues in my career, but it isn’t specifically my day job, and I’ve been guarded from the onslaught of criticism. But our time will come. 2014 will be our heavy lift; it will be our triumph or our downfall. I know I am being cryptic, and it’s nothing secret, just nothing worth going into.

Work is consuming me. So much (not the public stuff, more like office dynamic stuff) is going wrong and I feel like I’ve been on a steady decline all year as far as morale. And now I’m sitting at the bottom. My coworkers all bring their complaints and problems and hurts to me because I’m senior to them, but I’m not their boss. So I have the pleasure of listening and being dragged in, but having no authority to fix anything.

Ah lah, as Mary Moon would say.

The other night I dreamed I was prepping the CMS Administrator for her appearance before Congress. I had been emailing with her during the midnight hour the night before, and she had gone before Congress that day, and I guess this creeped into my mind at rest. I was sitting across from her and she kept asking me questions I couldn’t answer, and getting more and more mad and insistent. Uh, paging Dr. Freud please. I can’t quite figure out what all this means. Geez.

And I don’t have the answers. Things with this law aren’t perfect, things that we’re doing on our end aren’t perfect either. We’re slowly turning a ship in the middle of the ocean. S.l.o.w.l.y. I can’t be burdened with the enormity of it all.

But nor do I feel free to abandon it either. I’m seven years in, and I feel entrenched in this. Invested. Stuck. Honored. Lucky. Caught. Attached.

I suppose this all seems very dramatic, the ravings of a mid-level employee, mid-level in life. But it has been consuming me for so long that I’m putting my head up to realize that life is too short for all of this, surely. I can’t be dreaming about the office every single night. I need more.

No good way to end this, so I’ll leave a snapshot of my view, and know I am thinking of each of you as I type these words.

Every Day

Every day feels frantic.

I’ve entered the point where I was when I moved here, almost 4 years ago. And when I moved away from DC the first time, 8 years ago. And when I graduated college and moved to DC, 10 years ago.

What was senior-itis apparently transitioned into stagnant-itis with every few years bringing pretty seismic shifts in my life. Leading up to them was this anxious, frenzied feeling of quiet desperation (I know that sounds dramatic but it’s the best way I can think to put it) of “Something is going to change, it’s going to change in a big way, but I don’t know when/what/where and how any of it will occur.”

4 years ago, I actually went to the doctor and got on anti-depressants which I JUST weaned off of this summer. I was well past the point of actually needing them, and basically just was taking them to avoid the side effects. But that’s all done now, and I don’t feel that they’re needed to weather this similar….transition, whatever it may be.

4 years ago was different; I was different. I am a very, very different person than I was when I moved here, and that’s a very good thing.

My job is not going well. Beyond the government shutdown—has anyone heard the government is shutdown?—and the rollout of Obamacare—have you heard that some people don’t like that?—and the nitty-gritty work that we are in the middle of with health IT—you probably, actually, haven’t heard of that—things feel confusing and smothering and mad. Just mad. Mad crazy and plain mad, with my  blood pressure constantly on the rise.

Does anyone watch “The Middle?” The littlest kid, Brick, has a tic where he whispers under his breath what he is thinking or the last word he says. I’ve developed a Brick-like tic where I whisper “Fuckers” every single time I see John Boehner on TV and whoever he happens to be with. Add Michelle Bachmann to that list. And Eric Cantor. Fuckers. Life-alterers and destroyers and laughing all the way to the bank when this is all over with their book deals and TV gigs. Fuckers.

My health is also not going well. My cholesterol is up, my blood sugar was too elevated, etc etc. Doctor’s orders were a low-carb, high protein diet so I’m trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to eat. For an insane moment, I thought of using my blog to document my food and exercise. Then I realized that that would make me want to kill myself, as that is just so boring and I wouldn’t do that to you faithful few who come around to hear my thoughts. Like those are so exciting!

Every day, I look for jobs in Louisville, or in cities in Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. I would move within that radius. I don't necessarily want to move "home" right smack in the middle of my family, but I  want to stay within a day's drive of them. I want to get to where I can get a patch of dirt. I want a home. I want to put down some roots. I love my leaky basement apartment in the most historic neighborhood in DC. But I can't live there forever.

I see dozens of jobs I could qualify for easily, right here in DC but they’re few and far between anywhere else. They’re there. They just take time and work to find, and for better or worse, my life has been here and focused nationally. It’s hard to pick someone like that who isn’t in tune with a state’s government, political players, and whole environment. But I’m trying.

Every day, I don’t see much. I apply for what I do see. I don’t date (what’s the point?), I play softball with my various co-ed teams, I come home, I get drinks with friends, I take out the trash and toss the cat in the air and catch him when I come home (he … loves it). And every day I feel like at any point, it’s all going to stop and change.

Something is. What? When?

Every day. 

Texts with Dad

Sums up my work life, and my relationship with my (can't say enough good things about) father.

Home

This has been a tough month. I've been working crazy long hours, have been traveling around from big towns to small ones (I was flying into Mobile at 8pm, watching the darkness below and I thought --Shit, are there even cabs here?) I am home for a good long time. Fall softball starts on Tuesday. Time to get myself back for a minute.

I've been ready to leave, lately. Thinking thoughts of what's next. I'm ready to buy a home, settle down, get a patch of dirt. In DC, that's just not possible. Especially not in the area I'm in now -- trust me when I say I'm practically stealing my apartment from my landlords who are happily coupled up in Cape Cod owning a B&B and basically being the biggest gay stereotypes there are. I love them like crazy, and vice versa, and so they let me stay. I take care of the place, and they are happy because their history is here. Their life as a couple, their first ten years together.

And now, my own history is here. New Years Eve will mark four years here. Almost 7 years total of being in the DC area. When I was being introduced on Tuesday before I spoke, I heard "Stephanie has over ten years experience in...." I have been in a stage of life longer than ten years! Jesus! I haven't done anything for ten years other than attend my county school system.

It's been a tough September, and here are a few pictures of my neighborhood tonight. I took a walk to remember exactly what I'd miss, so that I can enjoy it now. I'm weird like that.

Debating

For a little while now, I've debated pulling the plug on this whole blog. Something always stops me, but something these days also stops me from writing too. I don't know if I could call it "writer's block" since it's not as if I usually say anything profound enough to be considered a real "writer" -but, it's there, just the same.

So much has happened this summer to make me very grateful for the people in my life. I wish sometimes I could write out each day as it happens, but I just don't have time. I don't have time to blog at work and at night, I often want to leave the heavy thinking to tomorrow after a full day of often very intense work.

The thing that would make me saddest to shut down would be to feel like I was losing each of you - you wonderful women, who came along during these years, and always read and encourage me to keep going, keep pushing. Those that I have now known for years, those that I have grown close to and become friends with offline and into real life.

One of the biggest things I'm glad about after observing the blogging world from afar, is that I am so, so glad I never tried to monetize or expand this blog. I'm glad I never advertised; I'm glad I never wrote for "an audience." I'm glad I never decided to become a brand; I'm glad I never wanted to fill a niche. I never shared this space with my family or others close to me, save a very precious few. I never wanted to guard my words; I never wanted to think about how my thoughts would be perceived.

I wrote authentically for me, and I am so glad for our small community -each of you that found me, one by one, and said "you." Yes, I will become invested in you.

This summer, I went to the Jersey Shore. My first time ever going to Jersey, and I went with friends. How did I meet these friends, you ask? Well, my friend Denise who lives in Knoxville is a kick-ass doctor, a yogi, a woman with struggles that she is brutally honest about. A woman who has a funny husband and a cute daughter, and I would never have known her without this blog. I would have never have found myself on the Jersey Shore in July 2013, because I never would have found Mary Moon, who connected me to Maggie May, who connected me to Katie Allison Granju, who connected me to her sister Betsy, who connected me into her entire tribe of friends, including Denise.

Betsy's kids sometimes slip and call me "Aunt Stephanie" and each of them are special to me now. And it would have never been if it hadn't been for these women. These women! You, women. I am in awe of all the people my blog has brought to me in "real life" with a readership of what -- 10, total? 15?

I guess 1 is all you really need.

1 becomes 2 which becomes 5 which becomes bigger than I knew could be possible.

If you hang with me, I'll hang with you.

(Summer 2013, Avalon, New Jersey)

 Beach Yoga -- I'm in the red shirt.

June visit -meeting my childhood best friend's son for the first time. Being his first babysitter. I think he digs me.

July 2013 -My softball team (scrapes and stitches for almost everyone) took second place in the summer tournament. Fall ball begins Sept 10.

Thanks for being here.

So much

More to say -it's been one heck of a summer so far. And it's only just beginning.

I'll leave you with these images of last night, at the wedding of a best friend I've had since we were 6 years old. My first memory of school is of her, and we're holding our trapper keepers up against the wall and talking about them.

I was a ball of emotions during the entire stint, mostly thanks to my friend with the initials PMS. I was also the only childless, single bridesmaid which helped matters not one bit. I could write a book on that experience at some point.

More to come tomorrow or this week...for now, here we are.

Our song since high school has been Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" -- and became far more fitting when, almost two years ago, she was with me when I fell on a cruise ship and broke my ankle during our vacation together.

She was wonderful.

I fell, she caught me.

I stood beside her this weekend as she married a man whom, I feel sure, will always catch her.

The last one was taken quickly in the car to send to my sister as a 'thank you' for doing my hair. She rocks. I didn't notice until uploading here that half my eyeliner on one eye is smudged off. See the word "emotional" earlier.

What a weekend, what a week, what a summer, what a life.

You Make Us Work Better

I'm bone tired, but I want to get this all out because I want to remember this weekend. My oldest niece graduated high school this past Saturday, and I flew in for it. I don't usually fly in for weekends (maybe once per year) and definitely not for individual occasions of each of my 10 nieces and nephews. But this one -this one was a biggie.

I whispered upon arrival, to her younger sister, that that high school gym packed with people was the most white people I've seen in a clump since we went to Disney World in 2004. She laughed and laughed at that one -- they came up to visit me over Thanksgiving, so they've all gotten a good front-row seat to my life and its differences to the small rural town in which we were raised.

I spent alot of time with Shelby, this niece of mine, as she grew. She was born when I was 14 to my 18 year old step-sister. This step-sister was fairly recently acquired as even though our parents had been dating since I was about 8 years old, Mom wouldn't marry him for several years. So, our family changed awfully dramatically in that short timespan and we all lived together too for most of the time. On the weekends, her crib was wheeled into my room.

I would wake in the middle of the night and bounce her up and down to popular country songs I'd hum under my breath. She particularly loved this song and I'd sing and dance little motions along with the lyrics "I know what love (bounce) is, WHATS it (dip) to you?"

'Time's up, train's a-moving baby.'

And so, it is her time to move on down the tracks. I made her a video for graduation that had everyone in the room sobbing  ugly tears. I was truly not intending that to happen, and I felt guilty. Especially for her younger siblings, who I didn't expect to look like they'd been smacked across the face. It was like it truly hit them that she's leaving. They've been such a tight unit of 3 since they were all born in within a few years of each other.

The video was a trip to make, watching them all grow up again - and me, an awkward teenager, grow up along with them.

She's going to college on a full cheerleading and academic scholarship. She got 'er done, and Aunt Steph is pretty dang proud.