year ago today

One year ago today I was starting the marketing job. I was spending the entire day indoors, sitting in a windowless conference room with our accounting woman, going through every single last page in a 3'' white binder filled with pages.

I signed non compete contracts, non fraternization clauses, proprietary information clauses. She lured me outside under the premise of showing me where to park and then smoked several off-brand cigarettes and I stood next to her in my pencil skirt and did not smoke any cigarettes, off-brand or otherwise. The office building housed the marketing firm on the third floor, and radiation and oncology services on the fourth and fifth floors, and I watched--as I would every day I worked there--a steady parade of frail, white-haired men and women walk so slowly toward the bank of elevators. Some were wearing head scarves. Some had to be wheeled in chairs.

For lunch I went to Chipotle and tried not to think of all the TA lunches I had in the Minnesota Chipotle, and then I returned to the office that smelled of paper and overheated electronic devices, and I continued to sign forms and pretend I knew anything about CRM. When it was all over, I sat in my new cube and looked through the paper clips and pennies gathering dust in my new drawers and tried not to throw up.

Today I am headed off for hours of orientation. On a campus that is lush and green and about to be filled with students.

Thank god for the last 365 days.