Finished the process for my clearance yesterday/today. There was a bit of a rush; they have to work in a certain window, and my application only became available just now. I had to dash around asking my old friends who would vouch for me; they needed specific references for periods of my life going back a long time. It has to be every single thing. Who was my manager when I was working at Betty's the month before I got married, when I was wildly planning my DIY wedding and cramming in hours? (Her name was Kathy, and she was very pretty, and used to chainsmoke menthol Virginia slims under a Norway maple in the Perennials section, and she was a tough exmilitary mom with all boys and a drunk husband, and she was so kind to me.) Who was my supervisor when I taught college in Lynchburg? (I don't remember.) Who could tell the federal government that in the late winter of 2012, I had quit my coffee shop job to look for real work after grad school, and I was running out at Augusta Springs every day, and sitting around, and thinking up reasons to put on clothes?

The process made me inexplicably sad. Not because of the privacy, or for having something to hide, just sad. Just this week.