She Said: Swearing In, The beginning of my search

Well, the past few weeks have been a blur and yet they have been wonderful. After flag day, I made my way back to Minnesota for a few days and then headed back to DC for the swearing in. It was really nice to have both my parents and Brian's parents in DC for the swearing in, and to be able to just spend some quality time together. As Brian has already said, the swearing in was a really neat ceremony to witness, and it made us all feel very patriotic. I was extremely proud of Brian!

Beyond the ceremony, we had a lot of time to talk about this journey. It has been 10 days since we heard "Caracas, Venezuela" announced as our post, and I think we are in a very different place about it today than we were when it was announced. As Brian and I said in our first post about Caracas, our initial reaction was mixed. While we have been excited about Venezuela and South America from day one, we had concerns about whether or not I would be able to work. I think at that moment, we both realized what "worldwide available" truly meant and it was a bit scary for both of us. Truthfully, I have hesitated to share my emotions about the post to this point because I never wanted anyone to think we weren't excited about Venezuela. That's really not the case AT ALL, and I want to be clear about that! What I have realized is that I think our fears just really took over when we realized what was happening. Suddenly, it wasn't what COULD be, it was what IS GOING to be, and those are two very different things.

From a career standpoint for me, I feel that I have worked hard to get to where I am, and I really don't want to give all of those things up. It has taken me 10 days (a few of them just feeling sorry for myself) to realize that I'm not giving those things up and that what lies ahead is an opportunity for me to showcase my abilities and talents and to do it overseas, as I've always wanted to do. Will it be hard? Without a doubt, but I've never been one to do things because they're easy. What I have realized since the announcement is that Venezuela offers all of the things that I said excited me about life as an FS spouse in the very beginning. When i read my first posts on this blog, I said that I was excited about the possibility of teaching, of freelance translating, of working with entrepreneurs in various industries such as chocolate, coffee and wine....of reinventing myself.

We know that Venezuela will offer us many challenges, but we also know that we will have an authentic foreign service experience there that will allow us to decide whether or not this is the kind of life we want to have after Brian serves his first two years. So, for those of you who have been wondering about how we're processing things, we're at a really good place about this whole experience. We are realistic about how challenging this post will be for both of us and excited about all of the beauty and opportunity it brings to us.