In my twenties, and why I sometimes find my past self to be something of an embarrassment, I walked around in an oblivious haze. One which, if I hated myself, I would call stupidity. But choosing to be kind, I will say that I was simply unaware. Around that time, my first job out of college, was minimum wage, and involved commuting to the nascent abscesses of South San Francisco, in a building which has since been razed, paved over, and replaced with a Lowes. In that building, I worked for a tiny family run biotech firm under the dual leadership of the married co-founders, who both received their Ph.D.’s from UCSF. So there was no shortage of intelligence or drive between the two of them. I worked directly “S” who was a tiny, brilliant, and the mother of three, yet still tiny. She was unnecessarily kind to me every day I worked there. And this was not not the norm. In my last job, the one where I labored free of charge, I had been threatened with being fired. Not for incompetence, but on a whim. In the same way I let almost being fired for no reason slide right on off, like shit off a boot, I also did not recognize that there was someone, without any basis, who worked alongside me every day who was encouraging and saw the best in me. Me, right out of college, fog in the brain and all. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but looking back now, I see it and take it out, and appreciate it.
A second instance, again in retrospect, stands out. Again, at the time, it was not something I recognized as extraordinary at the time. I just let it pass me by, in one ear and out the other, deep in my fog. It was during one of a series of one-on-one graduate school interviews. I was led by a student to one professor’s office after another, in a series. It was uncomfortable and tiring on both sides. On one interview with Professor M, I said, and to this day I still believe this to be true, that I was destined to have a difficult life, because I would always choose the more difficult path. It was simply my personality, and that part of me has not changed. A lot of my difficulties are self-inflicted, which means that the way to resolve them lies within me as well. But I digress. I think this little piece of information triggered something. She took out a piece of paper, and gave me her contact information. She said she understood, and that if I wanted, I could always give her a call. Of course that didn’t resonate with me. I wadded up that paper and put it in my pocket and forgot about it. I see it now, years later, as an exceptional act of kindness.
Here is what I take from this: these were both women who were fulfilled, strong, and in their prime. While in that glorious state, they had the capacity, the energy, to genuinely invest themselves in the welfare of those around them.
WRITE AND AMUSE 