Turning Tables
Diplomat to Caretaker. Daughter to Quasi-Parent. Exempted to Furloughed.
Six days ago, I returned to work after almost three months of extended leave to take care of my father. At 12:21 AM on October 1, I received my first furlough notification.
During the last furlough in 2019, I was considered exempt—I was overseas working in consular operations in China, months before the world turned upside down.
Just days ago, I was moving papers for reviews and clearance, tracking briefings for senior leadership, and responding to requests to confirm the status of U.S. citizens in Cebu, Philippines after a recent earthquake.
But on my first day as a furloughed federal employee yesterday, I didn’t juggle nearly as much. Instead, I took my dad to his cardiology consultation, cleaned my kitchen, prepped his food, took a nap, barely survived my cycling class, and ate dinner with my pops.
To be honest, I’m still surprised I’m employed—grateful, but surprised. Between almost losing my father and watching the dismantling of long-standing institutions in this country, I’ve mentally checked out.
There are crises brewing everywhere. Ever-changing policies keep us on a constant swivel—personally and professionally.
I find myself in a transition season. Typically, this is transfer season for many U.S. diplomats around the world—a time marked by uprooting: leaving behind communities we’ve built, closing chapters in jobs we’ve mastered, packing our lives into boxes, chasing down travel document renewals, and bracing ourselves to start over again somewhere new.
Usually, I’m the one saying, “See you in two or three years” or “I’ll come visit you in Zimbabwe, Brussels, or wherever you land next.” It’s a cycle I’ve grown accustomed to.
But this summer brought a different kind of transition—one I never thought would arrive so soon. The tables have turned, and I now find myself parenting my parent. This is a season not of passports and postings, but of doctor visits, legal paperwork, and learning how to navigate a “new normal” I didn’t choose but must now steward.
Honor Over Ambition
I used to dive into my work as if my life depended on it—my credibility, reputation, work acumen, you name it. My ethos for every tour was: leave an office better than I found it. The Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards scattered across my home office are proof that I was a formidable workhorse.
But that drive came to a screeching halt at the beginning of the summer when I almost lost my dad.
Something in me has shifted completely: Do I really care to break this glass ceiling? To rise up the ranks if the very people who held the ladder steady for me aren’t here to see me at the top? What does it matter if I worked the fields, reaped the harvest, and came home to an empty house with no one to share it with?
Promotion season in the Foreign Service often arrives around Labor Day. While the holiday is meant to honor laborers’ rest, many of us wait anxiously to see if our labor moved us up the ranks. For some, the news is frustrating, infuriating, or exhilarating. For me this year? I felt nothing.
I didn’t expect a promotion because the past two assignments I chose weren’t “promotion-worthy.” Don’t get me wrong—I had a blast on this last tour. I became a major-events guru and had a lightbulb moment for my long-term strategy. But I chose that tour because I needed rest. My first three postings were exhausting. Each came with unique challenges that compounded into a weight I could no longer shoulder. I needed to disappear.
This summer ushered in a new sense of defiance: an unraveling and undoing. I had to let go of the ambition to perform at the highest level because it felt as if God was preparing me to clear my slate and be available for a different kind of assignment—being a caretaker for my dad.
So my ambition has turned into a fervent desire for honor. Not the kind tied to HR files, fancy signatures, or cash—but the satisfaction captured in this scripture:
“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
That verse has become my anchor—my reason why.
Now honor looks like watching my dad shuffle across my house with his walker, hearing his soft voice crack a joke, listening to him giggle at a TV show, watching him shave, reminding him to take his meds, coordinating medical appointments, following up with insurance, and planning the next steps in his rehabilitation.
Holding On to the Time I Have Left
Moving every two or three years does something to you—mentally, physically, and spiritually. You leave as one version of yourself and return as another. Maybe you fell in love overseas, or got divorced, or witnessed a political coup, survived a natural disaster, lived through a pandemic, or lost someone you couldn’t attend the funeral for.
Each time I came home, I returned changed—my taste buds, mindset, views, my spirit. But what became painfully clear was the slip of time—ever ticking, steady. We think we have more time than we do. Relative to Earth’s age, our days are finite.
It’s hopeful, in a way, that every night we write a list for tomorrow with the belief we’ll wake up to do it. But leaving and returning home reveals just how little time we actually have.
I started the Foreign Service at 25. At that time, I still had so many elders and family living. I look at older pictures from the start of my career and see so many faces who have since transitioned.
No one will remember the hours I poured into work—the briefing papers, the crises I fanned the flames for. In the grand scheme, few will care. The things that matter are the people who remember the little things.
Every few weeks my dad asks, “What made you change your mind to come check on me?” Memories flood in—his presence across my life. But simply put: I want to cherish the time I have left. Whether it’s eating ice cream on the couch or listening to him retell childhood stories, I don’t have time to be absent from what matters most.
Did y’all know Alicia Keys wrote “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” about her grandmother? Back then, I used to imagine whatever crush I had at the time and belt the lyrics in the shower.
But today, those same words capture exactly how I feel about my loved ones:
I don’t wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don’t wanna take for granted
The time you may have here with me
‘Cause Lord only knows another day
Here’s not really guaranteed.
🎶 Watch "Like You'll Never See Me Again" on YouTube
My New Normal Matters Most
I used to love negotiating federal contract terms. I could sit with foreign officials and strike agreements on diplomatic shipments, event platforms, or safe transport of embassy assets in hot security zones. If there was a process or complex operation, I’d dissect it—dismantle it like a computer and rebuild it better. That was my norm.
My norm now looks different.
I care about persuading a Social Security caseworker to give the exact status of my dad’s paperwork. I care about getting DC Medicaid to give a consistent answer. I care about decoding medical bills and protecting my dad—who’s on a fixed income—from a healthcare system that often makes things worse. I care about remembering all nine of his medications, making sure his meals are balanced, and that I myself eat, exercise, and sleep.
Earlier this week I was trying to figure out how to return to work while being available for home health visits. I was juggling—and struggling, to be honest. There’s a mound of clothes in my basement that needs to be folded. I rise and go to sleep while it’s still dark. I’m trying to make time for my partner and my friends without disappearing into caretaking alone.
And while I am furloughed, I will do my best to tune out the noise of my country and listen only to the soft familial sounds that ground me.
I’ve abandoned—momentarily—the ambition that has always driven me, to rest in the honor of spending time with my parents while I have them. And while my new normal looks more like a full appointment book, baskets of unfolded clothes, and a call log that would rival a telemarketer’s—I’m managing.
And honestly, I’m okay with it all.