The Good Going on in Our Nation’s Capital: It’s Incremental, Fierce, and Female

I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the good going on in Washington, DC.

Yes, you heard me right.

I’ve been living in our nation’s capital for the last two years working for Congress, but for several reasons, it’s time for me to move back to my native-state of Michigan. I hosted a “see you later” party this past weekend out of my Capitol Hill home. Almost all of my amazing friends were able to make it, filling our main floor with an incredible showcase of the most fierce and faithful women I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Who these women are and what they do are the good that is coming out of Washington these days. That’s right — admirable good coming out of Washington, DC in 2018 — and I have been incredibly honored to witness it.

These women, my “DC friends,” are making history and shaping the future — one word, one decision, one gesture at a time.

They are working for the US Congress, caring for foster children, being the first in their families to get a master’s degree, and aspiring to be a future supreme court justice. They plan to become a police officer, open a home for female returning citizens, mentor and tutor this city’s youth, and lead small groups in their faith communities. They’ve gotten honest with themselves by showing up to recovery meetings, writing and sharing their poetry, and starting to see a therapist. They date confidently even after a painful divorce, and they bravely embrace singleness even when it wasn’t what they’d hoped for.

They’ve recently become US citizens, had courageous conversations with family members who’ve hurt them, shown up to neighborhood meetings to fight gentrification, helped draft thoughtful legislation, and celebrated long seasons of sobriety. They’re giving birth to and adopting babies, buying and refurbishing homes, and starting their own businesses. They bring groceries to you when you’re sick, do the dishes after a party you’ve hosted, and buy your coffee when you’re feeling down. They’re reporters, advocates, lawyers, aunties, volunteers, and government officials. They’re survivors, teachers, lovers, statisticians, donors, analysts, and grandmothers.

They pray together, cry together, strategize together, and show up together. They are my inspiration. They give me hope.

These are the women I know and love in Washington, DC. They are wicked smart, gentle, loving, grounded, honest, fierce, intentional, creative, strategic, faithful, and just all-around badass. I feel so incredibly honored and privileged to know and be known by them. In the paraphrased words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., these women are a steadfast part of the forces that cause the long arc of the moral universe to bend towards justice. They are part of the forces that are bringing healing to relationships and paving the way for the health and wholeness of future generations. One word, one decision, one gesture at a time.

There is good going on in Washington. I had to choose to see and surround myself with it. I had to choose to believe and actively live into the belief that it’s only going to get better here — and I have women to point to to prove it.