Twenty

At 7 a.m., in the nearly empty parking lot of a well-maintained office building – a building which, by the way, had a contract with Metropolitan Flower Exchange for regular placement and maintenance of seasonal plants, as well as a super named Joe, whose broken Italian-English often left us mystified – I sat and read the last chapters of American Pastoral, waiting to start my new job. 

Monday, March 1, 1999.  

Of course, I didn’t know anything then about the flowers, or Joe, or really anything about Bergen County.  I might as well have been starting a new job on the far side of the moon, which this place certainly was to me. I had not even known that you could contract for people to come and take care of your flowers.  Or your fish tank – which I later learned we had in our waiting area.  And that it was cleaned using our lunch room sink (see: Elissa’s Reasons to Close the Lunch Room Door).  In my neighborhood, we took care of our own flowers, fish, and whatever else we had going on.

It had taken me a considerable amount of courage to even apply for this new job.  I was already on year thirteen where I was, comfortable and contented at age 28.  On a whim, I applied for a position as a nurse paralegal at a medical malpractice law firm.  It was what I wanted to do, combine my love of nursing and law and turn it into a career.  I was hired on the spot, and three weeks later, I was beginning a new chapter.

I didn’t know that I would meet some of the most influential people in my life on that day, as well as in the years afterward.  These people would be by my side during some of the best and darkest hours of my life.  Through achievements, failures, joys, and sadness.  Through just regular everyday kind of stuff.  Work.  Laughter.  Personal growth.  Boredom. Challenges.  Arguments. Illness. Birth.  Death.  September 11th. Just about everything.  Five days a week, I drove to that office, and it became my second home.

And those people became my second family.  No, my family.

I never thought I would have twenty years of memories to reflect on.  On the first day, I reviewed a hospital chart with the boss, a physician attorney.  He asked me what ARDS was, and I whispered the answer.  I was intimidated.  I wanted to go back to my old job, where it was safe and where they knew me. Here, in the foreign land of Bergen County, no one knew if I was quiet or frightened or just dumb.  Or all three.  I had to prove I had a brain.  

It was going to be hard work.

Over the years, though, I think I did prove I had (have?) a brain. Through countless changes, the one who gave me the chance to shine was the one I could barely whisper to on that first day.  Now, he still commands my utmost respect, even if I don’t need to whisper anymore.  To anyone.  Ever.  And that’s mostly because of the confidence I’ve acquired over all this time, thanks to the chance he gave me twenty years ago.

Here’s to twenty more.  Thank you, Dr. Goldsmith.