377 days - Blog #101, year 23

I was at a work outing earlier this evening when a colleague marveled at the age of our youngest companion.  23.  So she posed the question.  What were we doing at age 23?

The answers were an interesting mix, highlighting the differences of our backgrounds and generations.  Some funny.  Some a matter of fact.  But interesting to imagine everyone at a different point in their lives.

A week or so ago I opened up a journal I was writing at that age.  I went to an October entry, curious where I was in or around the day when I was reading.  I found a few paragraphs of agony and then acceptance and then glee for the fact I got the program manager position of the education department at Higgins.  It was the end to a very rough couple of months and the start of another challenging year. 

But it was a great year.

I was very young to be put in that position.  Not too young to get paid that poorly.  Holy cow, I marvel that I paid rent on that salary.  Sometimes I nearly didn’t.  And yet I would work up to 60 hours in that job.  That job that I loved… and hated… but mostly loved.

I met some lifelong friends in that place.  Friends with whom I can talk until the wee hours of the morning to this day, even if we see one another but once a year.  I also learned a lot in that job.  I made a lot of mistakes.  Quite a number of managerial blunders.  But I knew that.  That’s why I went back to school to study management.

And I haven’t been a manager since.  Well, except that one summer I was lead guide at Beauport.  But it is a very different thing managing paper than managing people.

I have to think about that.

It was also a good theater year.  I played Dabby in Our Country’s Good.  

I went to Ireland for the first time… I first breathed in the smoggy air of London and got to walk across Waterloo Bridge.

I lived in Connecticut.  Wow.  I did that for a year, didn’t I?

No cell phones.

But mostly, that year was Higgins.  Outreaches and overknights and the mad season of scheduling tours and demonstrations for thousands of sixth graders from all over.  The Biker Ball.  Austin Powers.  Oh dear God, Austin Powers.  Chinese food birthdays.  Housesitting in Sturbridge.  Sitting around the table in the ed office burning string ends over a candle for helmet making supplies.  Yes, that was a thing.  A regular thing in fact.  Along with washing birthday cake frosting off a sword.  Such weird, glorious memories.

23 was a good year.  I’m glad to have had the excuse to spend a few minutes to go back to it.