Quite a while ago, I interned at the UN Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna, Austria.  I rarely write or tell people about this experience because it was frankly not a great one that I’m supremely proud of.  The place itself was a bureaucratic mess.  Although there were many well-meaning people who believed in the stated mission, there was something about the politics and power associated with it.  I also got assigned to probably the worst bully in the unit.  I tried to curb her and did it somewhat successfully but you know how these things are.

I don’t actually remember many of the bad parts these days.  Instead, I remember all the memorable places I visited in the country and region, the amazing food, great people, and the lessons.  In Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen, a daughter asks her mother how she could still love an abusive man who was the daughter’s father.  It didn’t make much sense to me because I was younger when I read it, but she says something like with time you only remember the good parts.  There is wisdom there.