Holding on to hope, awake to uncertainty

The world is a little less chaotic and a bit more stable for Rosalee Reese and her family. She was among the thousands of federal employees summarily dismissed through the DOGE reductions of the government and went through a storm of emotions when the actions took root.

Weeks following her dismissal, she was temporarily reinstated following lawsuits and rulings in federal court and is now back at work as a fisheries biologist for the Rio Grande National Forest. She’s unsure what the future holds for the position, but she’s holding on to hope and wide awake to all the other possibilities.

“I feel like it’s still really all up in the air, and there’s still just so much uncertainty and no one has been able to tell me anything concrete,” she said this week.

Reese visited with Ryan Michelle Scavo to update her about her situation. Ry is a Del Norte-based photographer and regular contributor to Alamosa Citizen.

Reese said she was reinstated for 45 days following a judge’s ruling. The 45 days expires on April 18, which coincidentally is the due date for her baby. She doesn’t know what happens once the reinstatement period ends or if she’ll be on maternity leave as a federal government employee. She’s part of a national grievance filed by the union that represents U.S. Forest Service employees but hasn’t heard more about that.

“So I kind of just really know that I’m reinstated for now and I don’t really know how long it’s going to last, and no one really seems to know how long it’s going to last,” she said.

She talked about how the experience of being fired from her federal job and then speaking out about the mass federal firings at a Rio Grande County Commissioners meeting brought a different kind of attention.

“I was pretty. . .I mean the whole thing has made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and vulnerable,” she said. “I’m usually a fairly private person, and so the way all of this kind of exploded and all of the news coverage and talking to reporters …”

This July will mark two years and the end of her probationary period as the Rio Grande National Forest’s fisheries biologist. She worked for U.S. Fish and Wildlife before the forest service as part of her career ambition to work for the federal government.

How it all turns out remains uncertain. 

“We really love the community here. We bought a house here, we’re starting our family. We kind of had thought, ‘Okay, we finally got to where we wanted to be, and now we can settle and just do our thing and relax and have our life.’ And now it’s like, ‘Damn, do we move again?’ After moving so many times and chasing the federal career, do we try to stick it out here?

“Ultimately, I would like to just keep my job. I really love my job.”

Going through the ordeal while pregnant has taken a toll. Yoga and daily meditation have helped, she said. 

“I feel a little traumatized and I kind of feel like I got these last couple months of my pregnancy stolen from me just because we had a very careful plan. We thought everything through, we didn’t take this choice lightly, and then everything got turned upside down.

“It’s obviously my choice of what I choose to focus on and how I put my energy and my emotion, but also it was incredibly stressful and really, really hard and challenging. So I’ve been really trying to refocus those last couple weeks and just do my yoga and meditate every day and focus on the baby and be present and enjoy this last little bit of time, just me and my husband, and prepare for him (baby) and just try to be present and thankful.”