A (not so) short summary
Well, when I left off in November of 2007, I was getting ready to graduate from SMU and not really sure what was next. I was graduating early in December so that I could get out to Washington DC and get started on a job in politics. I had interned in Washington the summer between my junior and senior year and during that time I realized all I wanted to do was come back. I had worked for a Member from California and his great staff inspired me to want to work on the Hill (without an ID badge that marked me as an Intern and not a permanent staffer).
Although I hung around Dallas a couple more months and worked for a Texas Member of Congress in his district office as well as being a nanny for a Dallas family. But in April I packed up my bags and with the help of my father, drove out to DC and moved into an apartment with one of my friends from high school and began my job search. I was lucky to start the search before most May graduates. I ended up going down to Mississippi to help on a special election for a House race (MS-01) and while there met the Political Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Nonetheless, I cam back to DC and continued my search for a job on Capitol Hill. While back, I met a girl in the Communications Department at the NRCC who offered to have me come intern for her while I looked for a job. I took her up on that to keep myself busy. Unrelated, the political director had remembered from Mississippi that I was looking for a job and called me in for an interview. At the same time I interviewed for a Staff Assistant job on the Hill for a Kentucky Member. I was offered both a job at the NRCC in the political department as well as the Staff Assistant job. I struggled with this decision because coming out to DC I thought I knew and planned to take the legislative route in a Member’s office. However, with the advice of some NRCC folks, I passed on the Staff Ass job and now KNOW that while I struggled with it at the time, of what the best decision was, I made the right one.
Taking the job at the NRCC was one the greatest things I could have done. I had no idea what a wonderful door would be opened up and a side of politics that I grown to have a passion for. I realized that I loved the political, strategy side of things. And while it was a terrible year for Republicans running for Congress, my passion was and is to win back the House. Although with the loss of House and Senate seats and the White House Dems quickly outnumbered conservatives and I saw it coming. So, I had lined up a job with a political media firm in Dallas, TX to start at after the beginning of the year.
After the election, I packed up and moved back to Dallas before Christmas. As I drove back to Dallas I didn’t realize just how upset about it I would be. After all the long hours and weekends I was going to miss all the great people and job I had grown to love. I thought I was making the smart decision. However little did I know that after moving back to Dallas and with the economy getting increasingly worse after the new year, the firm that I was to start at could not take on another employee. So there I was, back in Dallas without a job. About a month later I was offered a job at a finance company in Dallas doing lobby work on the state level that would involve me traveling a lot across the country but this did not seem like the right fit so I ended up not taking the job.
After a few months in Dallas, unsure of what to do and where to go next, I thought maybe the best thing to do was to move back to California. I was confused because the job in Dallas had not worked out and turning down a lobbying job that also did not seem right, but I was not sure what to do next. I called my parents up thinking maybe a move back home to California might be best. Although, they knew that if I did that I would be unhappy and urged me to move back to DC, which I have to admit I was really happy about. So once again I made the drive from Texas to Washington, although this time it was alone. I moved in with some friends for a couple of months until my best friend from college and I got an apartment together. It was scary signing a year lease without having a job lined up, in a time when the economy is still down. But I have the most AMAZING parents who have supported me every step of the way.
I recently received a job in Republican politics working in New Media. I think it was most fitting that one of the first things I did was to update my Facebook page. So this is where I am and where I will go from here, who knows! I do know that life throws you for some crazy loops and strange turns. We aren’t always in control of the things that happen to us but we are in control of how we respond. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I would not want to do it over again, but I would not change anything- everything happens for a reason.
Maybe what I have learned the most from all of this is not to over-plan your life. I tried to plan months in advance what and where I was going to be after the election but that may have hurt me more than it helped me. But I have grown from all of this and as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.
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DJ DK said,
August 6, 2010 at 11:48 am
Aw I just re-read this and it brought back a flood of memories–you moving up here initially, driving back to Dallas, your first/last day of work at the lobbying firm and finally moving back here!! You’ve come so far!