life lately | march

March was the month that changed my life. For the rest of my life, I'll remember sitting in a crowded movie theater on March 14 and opening the email that said, "Congratulations," and it held my hand and opened my palm and placed into it my whole future, bright and open and so full of possibility. So much of these last few months has left me feeling stunned, feeling almost numb with unbelievability. Nothing that has happened is believable. It's funny, too, because it is believable. There is a part of me - that since the day I sat in the information session for Georgetown's international relations master program last fall and heard a fellow applicant mention she was applying for the Rangel Fellowship, and I played those unfamiliar words over in my head and on my tongue, that knew it was my destiny. Isn't that crazy? I can't believe I'm putting it in words. I daydreamed about that destiny until I laughed out loud alone in bed so many nights I can't count them because I've never been the sort of person to believe in destiny and fate like that. But it felt destined. It felt right through my core. I think now, now that it's becoming reality - now that I'm only 5 short, short, too short days from leaving my beloved job to embark on this crazy adventure that is this Fellowship and grad school in the fall - now that I know the rug isn't going to be pulled out from under me, and it's not all just one of those late night daydreams - I really see now that it wasn't destiny so much as a good fit. A perfect fit. I've dreamed of a life in the foreign service, I've planned it out, I've known for a while that it's in my blood. That kind of unsettled life is what makes me feel the most settled, the most content, the realest version of myself. This was the month of finding out the stuff I'm made of, and it rocked my world, it rippled through me in waves until I had to believe it - I did it. I'm here. My future is mine.

1&2: 2014: The Winter That Never Ended
3, 4, & 5: March was the month of Theo. My brother took him down to stay with my mom at the end of the month, until Zan and I can rent his condo and find a place of our own that allows dogs. And boy, did Theo and I live up every single last day together. We found a new favorite trail. I can't wait until we're reunited. My life is incomplete without him.
6: I moved! Matt and I said goodbye to living together. From a studio apartment where we shared a bed in LA to the slumlord in Bloomingdale all the way to the tree-lined streets of Cleveland Park, we were in it together until we met our matches. I found this note from my mom written on my old bible. I couldn't throw that old thing away because that note. And isn't her handwriting gorgeous?
7&8: Ellie came to visit! I talked a lot about her being there for me when I found out about Rangel. That's another friendship that's for the ages. We meandered around Georgetown after dress shopping for a girlfriend's wedding next fall and found ourselves planted on the giant green adirondack chair.
9: Zan and I celebrated our two year anniversary on Mach 24. Last year I made him a chocolate peanut butter cake; this year we booked a trip to Costa Rica. He's alright, y'all.

my next chapter

"Here's one final question. Why do you want to be a Rangel Fellow?"

Matt was playing the part of my interviewer to help me prepare for pretty much the single biggest opportunity of my life, and he was doing a great job of it. He had already peppered me with questions on foreign relations - asking me on the spot to outline essays on topics such as the role of multilateral organizations in global conflicts.

I paused to think about my answer - why do I want to be a Rangel Fellow? It was a great question - and an obvious one, and somehow I hadn't thought of it yet. I knew in my gut, in my heart, deep in me from the moment that I heard about the program that I wanted it, that it was my calling - if I can be so bold to say that. But how could I put that in words?

Last fall, I spent some time visiting the graduate schools in which I was interested. At the information session for one of them, a fellow attendee and I clicked immediately. She mentioned that she was applying for the Rangel Program - a fellowship designed to increase the number of minorities and low-income people in the Foreign Service. Excited, I spent my bus ride home reading the Rangel website and learning more about the application process.

Congressman Charlie Rangel founded the Rangel Program - a House member from New York. Today, the program is funded by the Department of State and run out of Howard University. A grand total of 20 fellows are chosen each year - a tiny number that intimidated me! These Fellow spend the summer before they matriculate into graduate school doing an internship on Capitol Hill - either for a Senate or House committee or with a Congress member. The Fellowship provides generous funding for graduate school that is matched by most international relations programs. The second summer, the Fellows take on an internship in an overseas embassy. After finishing the second year of graduate school, the Fellows go directly into the Foreign Service (FS). The Fellowship includes a 5 year contract in the FS.

I put everything I am into that Rangel Fellowship application, let me tell you. I daydreamed about it every waking hour. And dreamed about it in my slumbering hours. I shed tears of hopefulness, even.

When I found out I had been chosen as a finalist, I don't know if I've ever been more excited - or more nervous - for anything in my life. The selection process for choosing the Fellows was a full day - a panel interview and a writing test. I was terrified to my core because the stakes were so high. Rangel, in my mind, is too good to be true. So, you know, just the single most important interview of my life. No pressure, right?

I felt myself starting to well up as I finally responded to Matt's question.

I want to be a Rangel Fellow because the Fellowship is more to me than a free-ride to graduate school. I don't want just five years in the Foreign Service; I want an entire career.

I want to be a Rangel Fellow because I believe in the power of diplomacy for making positive change in the world, promoting peace, spreading democracy, and strengthening global ties, and I want to contribute to that important work. 

And I want to be a Rangel Fellow because even if I'm not chosen, I believe in this program. I believe in its mission of diversifying the Foreign Service, of giving a chance to people like me from single parent and low-income homes, to give voice to their experience and use that breadth of diversity to make American diplomacy even stronger.

Just three days after I answered Matt's question, I was sitting in a movie theater waiting for the 10:30pm opening night showing of Veronica Mars (amazing) to start. I opened my email, and my life changed, and all my dreams came true.

I'm a Rangel Fellow.