2011: A Surprising Year in Three Acts

Last year's New Year's fireworks over Jackson Square in New Orleans 

If 2010 was the year of incessant travel for me, 2011 was a bit more unpredictable. I told God my plans, and He laughed. Then He laughed again and told me I needed to re-calibrate some things. In many ways the past few months have been like the infamous Year I Was Sick and had to drop out of college. On the other hand, I feel more "adult" than ever before. And not just because everyone and their brother (including my own dear Brother #1) got engaged. The year began with surprise trip to my BFF in Tampa, and things got more unexpected after that.

Act I: Grad School

In the first part of the year, I wrote my thesis on Episcopal vestment history and finished my master's degree in American material culture. I coped with the stress by reading a jillion cookbooks and buying dresses off eBay that required awkward alterations.

Grad school was either mind-numbingly lonely and boring, or totally exciting. When I wasn't burning the midnight oil with my computer on my lap, I was jaunting off to awesome field trips. My class poured molten pewter in Colonial Williamsburg, almost accidentally bid on furniture at Sotheby's, got a private tour of the White House and Senate floor, and took graduation photos next to a 1920s Rolls Royce. I'll always treasure the image of a professor sitting on the floor of the Met atrium, echoing off the ceiling as he literally exclaimed to a curator that she should hire me.

She didn't. Everyone in my class found jobs, except for me and a fellow far more brilliant than I. So I headed home to DC, but not as a downtown commuter like I had planned.

Act II: Unemployment

Moving back home was definitely a time warp. When I wasn't revisiting the haunts of my past in northern Virginia, I found semi-jobs in unexpected places. I was a babysitter/chauffer. I somehow got tangled up in homeschooling, despite my heathen public university cred.
Then just as The Beau was returning from England and I was about to join my VSC housemates for fun on the beach ... Surprise! My temperamental back blew up and I spent three weeks as an invalid. Just as I was recovering my family all took a last minute trip to visit our Chicago relatives because, hey, when else could we fit it in? The day after we got home, I interviewed for a part-time data entry job someone had offered my little brother because why the heck not.

Act III: The 9-5 World

To my astonishment, my interviewers did not laugh in my over-qualified face. Instead, they offered me a full time job. Starting in 48 hours. Ok sure! I can learn accounting; I have nothing else to do.

So I entered the "real" i.e. "not museums" world, where they hire people at warp speed and actually understand modern technology. To my surprise, life as an office drone is engaging, not soul-sucking. I don't yet feel like I am wasting my time and education. Co-workers have turned out to be some true friends. I'm relatively happy as a corporate employee- maybe advanced degrees in the liberal arts are indeed useless and overrated luxury items.

Who knows if I will feel the same way this time next year. At the rate Divine Providence is panning out, a few more unexpected twists wouldn't surprise me.