If you’ve read this blog, you probably know I’m pretty friendly with Cory Booker’s office.
And I blogged not that long ago about visiting his Senate office.
Well, now that the election’s over, Cory Booker’s wonderful, sweet, beautiful office staff set up a few minutes for me to talk to the Senator I admire so much.
I actually interviewed for a job in Cory Booker’s office years ago. (Obviously, I did not get it, as you can tell by me never mentioning working there.) But I really enjoyed everybody I spoke with (of course). And I sort of kept in touch with the Cory Booker team a tiiiny bit.
They told me if ever I found myself in DC to let them know, so I could stop by.
After I lost The Nightly Show, and had nothing but free time on my hands, I wrote ’em saying I could hang in DC whenever, if that offer was still on the table. And they set up a meeting for me and Cory Booker’s Chief of Staff.
As you may have heard (definitely heard if you’ve been reading this blog… so sorry about the one-track-minded-ness lately), I was sexually assaulted earlier this year. [Again, sorry to mention it again, but I promise you it’s very relevant to this post.]
I had written in my request of what I wanted to meet with Cory (or his team) about was that I basically wanted to talk about what I talked about on this very blog yesterday. You know, how do we forgive, and what do we owe people, and all of that?
I believe SO hard in what Cory preaches – to be kind to unkind people. They’re the ones who need it most… But, as I talked with his team about… Right now, I just don’t know how. I’ve tried to be kind (and with sexual assault guy, kindness most often seemed to blow up in my face and subject me to more abuse). So, to really focus on kindness after all of this is pretty hard for me… I just don’t know – what do I do?
Well, Matt, Cory’s Chief of Staff was really kind and helpful. He said that I’ve already done my part to be kind. I showed empathy. I allowed the man to explain himself, and that man’s explanation was, “I know you didn’t want to, but you needed to.”
And so now, I owe him nothing… (In fact, Matt said I owed him nothing in the first place. I didn’t owe him the ability to explain a sexual assault… But I especially owe him nothing now.)
It was a really rejuvenating, inspiring conversation. And he kindly told me he would do what he could to get me a few minutes with the senator.
After the election, I was slated to fly out of New York (for this random Marine Ball I was going to).
The day after the election, I got an email asking if I’d like to catch Cory at an event he was doing in New Jersey!
What (practically) perfect timing! I wasn’t working that week. I was already in New York. I could easily get to Jersey. I did have to change my plane ticket to fly out a day later. But who cares? I did that and then went to Cory’s event the next day, and I got to talk to him for a few minutes afterward.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!