Throughout my third week in the office, impeachment continued to be at the forefront of
everyone’s minds. The calls from constituents, the pundits on television, absolutely everyone had their eyes on the Senate. Yet business continued to go on. The Senator and his staffers continued to meet with constituents as time allowed. So too did staffers work to coordinate memos and policy agendas in line with regular Senate behavior. Though impeachment presented a bump in the typical road of Senate business, the work of the nation rode forth on the backs of some of its most dedicated. Like many other processes throughout one’s existence, despite crisis, life goes on. In my case, the week was filled with tour trainings, sitting in on meetings, a conference at the Heritage Foundation, and time talking with constituents on the phone. Learning more and more with each passing day, I found myself at once increasingly bewildered with the responsibilities, institutional knowledge, and tools available to staff while surprising myself in my increasing comfortability with these same things. In my tour training, I was amazed to learn more about the Capitol Rotunda, dumbstruck at the amount of history contained within a single fresco. Though I was similarly struck by how much I already knew about the history before me. The terrible conquests of De Soto in the mid-16 th century. The history of the Wright Brothers in Dayton and Kitty Hawk. It was as if two halves of my development were being presented before me. The first, a blatant curiosity. Outsized wonder at the breadth and depth of policy and politics continuously laid out before me. The second, a tangible grasp of the seemingly unending existential processes governing the actions and responses of those around me. A natural reflexive tendency to adapt when prompted, a type of hands-on learning not possible in a classroom or simple lecture. Continuing forward, I realized and still am realizing the ways in which learning occurs in both of these ways. Curiosity, the ambition towards wisdom and enlightenment. And struggle, the type of practice based learning which exonerates fear and instils discipline among patience. Humility, I learned in this process, is forever forthcoming. So too, I hope as I move forward, is opportunity.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Mike Juvrud