A sudden breeze about the ankle.

According to a lightly engraved brass nameplate and several small (but official-looking) bits of white embossed cardstock, I am now employed. Fancy pants and all.

My first day of work at the new job was ten kinds of exhausting, six varieties of fairly pleasant, and three distinct types of terrifying. The terrifying really started yesterday, because the agonizing prologue to this kind of event is a snowball of nervous energy, not the least bit hampered by the logical knowledge that they probably wouldn’t have hired you if they didn’t think you were competent. Or at least trainable.

That kind of confident awareness is fine and dandy when you first accept the job offer, and it even allows you to quit your old retail monstrosity with an air of satisfying self-validation, but it’s another thing altogether when it’s suddenly 11:00 the evening before your first day, and for some reason you can’t shake the visual image of walking face first into the glass lobby door while the receptionist at the front desk phones your supervisor to ask if he had any back-ups for that new girl that was supposed to start today as she watches you get loaded into the back of an ambulance.

This particular fear of entryway-related humiliation, in addition to various other strands of professional uncertainty, is what sent me into an uncharacteristic panic attack yesterday. Luckily, my very good friend Kate was there to talk me down from the ledge:


Kate: Take deep breaths. Have a glass of water.

Meldraw: What if they fire me before noon?

Kate: They won’t. They’ll love you! Seriously, you probably won’t even have your computer set up by noon. You’ll spend all morning getting your photo ID taken, and filling out forms for HR, and talking to IT to set up your voicemail, email and various and sundry passwords.

Meldraw: I’m going to make an ass of myself. And for the rest of ever, everybody’s going to be all, “Hey, there goes that girl who made an ass of herself.”

Kate: You won’t.

Meldraw: And this isn’t just a job. This is a career move. Lord, starting tomorrow, I’m basically an adult. With an adulty job.

Kate: I hate to say it, but you’ve been an adult since you starting paying for your own utilities.

Meldraw: But this sort of cements it, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s no going back. I can’t be a kid again. Ever.

Kate: Would you want to be a kid again? I wouldn’t.

Meldraw: I don’t know. I never really wanted to be an adult.

Kate: I didn’t either, but just today I was reminded that, as a child who couldn’t ice skate, I was left on the ice by my sister. In front of the Zamboni. This is why I don’t ice skate.

Meldraw: Er…so. What you’re saying is…as a kid, you are almost entirely at the mercy of others.

Kate: Yes. And think of middle school.

Meldraw: I hated middle school.

Kate: And then high school! And who wants the pressure of trying to get into college again?

Meldraw: I guess getting through middle school and high school, and getting into college, getting through college, and getting OUT of college…those were all accomplishments.

Kate: I’d much rather be older and have more choices than be younger and not have a clue.

Meldraw: I’m just torn between wanting so badly to take control of my own life and be my own person and live up to my own expectations, and being scared of the responsibility that entails.

Kate: I understand, but I still maintain that it’s better to be an adult. If for no other reason than you’ll be an adult for a lot longer than you were a kid. With luck, I mean.

Meldraw: You have a point.

Kate: Yes.

Meldraw: The thing I really, truly miss as a kid is absolute comfort. The kind of comfort that comes from being absolved of responsibility…placing all your faith in someone outside yourself, like your parents. That feeling of security? That’s not something I think I’ll ever have again. People with religion have that feeling. I don’t.

Kate: But you have to realize that some things are certain.

Meldraw: Like what?

Kate: Like that your parents and your sister will always care about you, no matter what you do, and you know that’s true.

Meldraw: Well, yes.

Kate: And that the really good things in life can’t be bought and are not dependent on finances. Also, there are a lot of things you have now that cannot be taken away from you: an education, skills, knowledge…intangibles.

Meldraw: Awareness.

Kate: Yes. It’s like this: I was shopping a couple weeks ago in this store where they clearly make their employees wear their ridiculous trendy clothes. There was this girl working there wearing plaid pants and a teeny t-shirt. With the bad teenage posture, she was just so sad looking. And I thought, well, I may have put on about twenty pounds since I was sixteen, but I will never be as uncomfortable about myself as I was then.

Meldraw: I suppose that’s true. I will never again be forced to wear trendy clothes to satisfy some socio-psychological requirement. But are you ever really completely comfortable with yourself?

Kate: No. But I’m way better off than that girl, and me at her age.

Meldraw: Yeah.

Kate: I will never have to wear something that anyone will refer to as “ass khakis,” which I did then. I admit it.

Meldraw: Well, yes…you’re right. I’m in a much better place than I was as a teenager.

Kate: Yes!

Meldraw: It sneaks up on me, but…I’m definitely a lot more comfortable with myself than I used to be. I feel like my own person.

Kate: That’s because you ARE your own person. You have a fancy pants job! It’s cool, isn’t it?

Meldraw: Yeah, it is, come to think of it.

Kate: That’s right.

Meldraw: Thanks, Kate.

Kate: So, wohoo! This is the Eve of Excitement! I’m excited for you!

Meldraw: Thank you. If you’re excited for me, then I can be too!

Kate: This is me, sitting here doing that I’m-so-excited-I’m-shaking thing!

Meldraw: Aw! You rock.

Kate: No, you! You rock. YOU ROCK MY SOCKS OFF!

Meldraw: Yeah. I rock socks like nobody’s damn business.

Kate: Truth.

Meldraw: I’m a sock-rocker.

Kate: No one rocks socks like you do.

Meldraw: That’s right!

Kate: Damn skippy it is.

Meldraw: I hope those people tomorrow are Velcro-ing their socks to their shoes, because I’m going to rock them right off.

Kate: It’ll be like Miami Vice in that joint! All loafer, no sock.

Meldraw: Everyone in the building will suddenly feel a breeze about the ankle.

Kate: The place will be filled with confused Midwestern insurance types, all standing around barefoot, with shoes on, while a conga line of socks snakes its way around the building.

Meldraw: So jaunty!

Kate: Totally jaunty! I hope everyone wears the good socks, with no holes.

Meldraw: I feel so much better.

Kate: I’m so glad.

Meldraw: Kate, you’re the best evah.


And with that, Kate armed me with a new and improved visual to replace the head-meets-glass ambulatory scenario from earlier. You can’t NOT smile while picturing a multi-colored conga line of mismatched socks dancing merrily through a maze of cubicles, led by myself, the Pied Piper of Sock-Rockage. It’s simply not possible.

Kate also armed me with the reassurance that it didn’t really matter what happened my first day, because there isn’t much I could have done that would have made them fire me. Even if I somehow managed to spill coffee on the VP (which I didn’t), or destroy an expensive computer system (which I don’t think I did), or inadvertently call my boss the son of a motherless goat in Lebanese (I’m almost entirely certain that was not Lebanese), and even if they DID fire me, it still doesn’t really matter, because there are intangibles that can’t be taken away from me. And my favorite intangible right now just made the best Miami Vice joke I’ve heard in ten years.