Cali Girl in the DMV One Year Later

And so we start this story in medias res. I have been living in the Northern Virginia area for one year now and in this time, my husband has gone to Afghanistan, come back for two weeks and went back again. In the first month that I was here someone decided to smear food all over my (then new car) and leave a gash in the trunk, which I have chosen to leave there to keep me humble. And then two months ago, while my husband’s base was being attacked, I hit a wall in the parking garage and scraped the side of my car. A total of $6000 including rental car. It took almost a month and a half for the car to be fixed. I have watched my brand new luxury apartment building turn into a frat house with some of the most ridiculous people I have ever seen who feel that it is beneath them to clean up after their pets and who will not speak in the elevator or in passing no matter how many times they have seen you. And I formed what I know will be a lasting relationship with a very beautiful person who I bonded with during her 13 hour labor.

When my lovely husband of 20 years left for Afghanistan, he told me that I had a year to find myself. Meaning that since this is a potential place for us to settle down after many years of traveling with the Army and since I am soon to be an empty nester, I should begin to figure out what I wanted to do professionally. Well everyone who knows me knows that I am an Onibella of all trades, best described as a younger, darker, Martha Stewart. Or at least that is what I aspire to be…in my own mind. However, the closest I have come to finding “me” has been a job at Crate and Barrel. This job was supposed to be a part time thing that I did until I figured out what I REALLY wanted to do, but it turned into me being a miserable full time department manager after five months and back to part time three months later. Now granted, the choice to work at Crate was not necessarily a bad one or without merit.

After all, it is the one stop shop for everything chic and domestically frivolous. I mean, who doesn’t need a Crumb Catcher, or an Olive Pitter, or a Strawberry Huller (a contraption that removes the skin from strawberries, but looks like a tiny medieval torture device.)

Strawberry Huller or Medieval Torture Device

Working at Crate definitely sparked my creativity. While ringing up customers, I could fantasize about how I would use the wonderful glass for awesome, elaborate candy and dessert displays at parties and weddings. Or the amazing meals I would cook on television with all of the tools and gadgets, or the homes I would design with the cool furniture and accessories. But aside from dreaming, what have I really been doing? What am I supposed to be doing? Who the hell am I, and what is my life going to be here in the DC area?

After much deliberation, and joking over too much tequila with some people I work with, it was decided that what I really am is a Socialite. Ugh!! It even feels weird to type it. Coming off the buzz of tequila, I told my husband the colossal joke when he called me from the other side of the world. He failed to see the humor.

“You are a socialite!” he said without a hint of laughter in his voice. “It’s what you have always been.”

I felt insulted and yet a wave of truth washed over me.

Pretty much, I have been a socialite my whole life, first as a Preacher’s daughter growing up in L.A., which can be a very tight knit social circle with certain expectations. And then in my military circle as an Army Wife for 20 years. Not a socialite like Paris Hilton, or a Real Housewife of Wherever (although I am actually a real housewife). But a military wife who had a real budget and who had a social circle of other army wives who mostly volunteer, lunch, and shop because there is no work at most postings and who dream about who they are going to be once their men are done saving the world and they can settle down somewhere.

I mean, when I think of the term socialite, I think social climber, gold digger, annoying woman who treats everyone around her like “the help” as if she is entitled, whether she actually has the funds to do so or not. I see those people at Crate all the time. I could never be any of these things. I am too lazy and lack the motivation to climb any social ladder. I am too nice to people, even if I don’t want to be, after all, I work part time in retail. And if I were a gold digger, I certainly wouldn’t be married to the Army. Right?

So how do I turn that lovely social experience into work once hubby is retired and I am here in the DMV sans my forced social circle of other Army Wives? What is a socialite without a social circle? How does one make a living, make money, being a damned Socialite? Why would anyone want to? What the hell does any of it mean anyway?

My Dude and I on the way to the India.Arie listening party.

Do I plan on doing something great with my life? Absolutely! Like any Army Wife will tell you, we bloom where we are planted. I like thinking of myself as Oni of all trades, the Black Martha Stewart, a renaissance woman. And if we must, after much thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be thought of as the Reluctant Socialite. Stranger things have happened.

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