Handshakes

Last week, the friends and colleagues I entered the Foreign Service with (the 133rd class of A-100 "Standing and Clapping") hit another milestone on the road of a State Department career as "handshakes" went out for everyone's third assignment.

The first milestone, in my opinion, is the opening day on A-100 when we all collectively and without much pomp and circumstance (standing in the lobby of FSI) swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

This ceremony, stripped down and basic though it may be, is deeply moving for many of us.  There wasn't a day that I went to work in the Foreign Service that I didn't carry with me the copy of the Constitution that I received on the first day of A-100.

At the end of A-100, "Flag Day" in the ceremony where we graduate from basic training and receive our first assignment in the form of the flag of the nation to which we have been assigned.  I am celebrating this day with my parents and the Russian flag in the picture above.  

Our second assignment is also "directed" (they tell you where you'll be going) but the with the third assignment, we graduate to yet another model of finding your own assignment and lobbying for your own ability to do that job better than anyone else in the Foreign Service.  It's stressful, unfamiliar, and most folks hate it the first time around.  Seeing everyone announcing their assignments via e-mail or Facebook, I was proud and happy for them and yet I felt a sense of loss and mourning that I wasn't sharing this milestone with my friends.

It's is strange life, there's no getting around it, but both Steph and I embraced it fully and loved every second of it.  I haven't given up hope that I will return to work although going overseas again seems unlikely.  I loved this life and I miss it.  But I'm proud of my friends, some who will be working demanding jobs in the main State Department and many seeking out challenging assignments in Afghanistan and Pakistan which is exactly what Steph and I were planning when our whole was turned upside down a little more than a year ago.