Going Back in Time

It’s a very strange thing to be able to return to a life you left a long time ago. Like going back to an old relationship, even though there was a reason it didn't work out - for a brief (usually very brief) period of time, you get to re-live all the wonderful parts.  You focus on the good memories and fall into old patterns and everything is wonderful, until of course... all the bad parts rise to the surface and you realize why you moved on in the first place.  At least for me, at the moment, it's not an old flame... it's an old job.

The good thing  is that this was a job that I loved most of the time.  I look back fondly on the day that I started, the whole first summer I spent there getting to know everybody and feeling like a real, live grown up, the fall that we moved to a new location where I became the first person to sit at this very desk!  I often ache for the holiday parties, organizing fun events for the office, the chats at my desk, sending snarky emails, the Christmas lunch tradition and that time I sat in the lobby and watched Michael Jackson’s funeral and cried.

I walked in yesterday and opened the front doors and sat at “my” desk and it literally felt like time had stopped and then I walked back in and it kept moving again – as if I were Zack Morris in control of the time!  I didn’t feel out of place, everything looked the same – minus my previous cluttered décor – and the few remaining people who once worked with me walked by and said hi casually as if I’d been here the whole time.   It’s so oddly comfortable.  I know where everything is, I answer questions confidently and help people as if they’re new and I’m not, I literally just feel like I’m me… two years ago. 

But I’m not!  So much has changed!  I have longer hair that is more blonde than the brunette or red it was the entire time I worked here.  I have a new boyfriend.  I have way more professional performance time under my belt.  I have celebrated two birthdays.  I lost my dog (to death.)  (Just wanted to clarify.)  I have had several panic attacks!  I’ve grown, changed and adapted to the times and my new life as a mostly stay at home performer.

It’s funny how a little bit of time apart can make you feel as though all the hectic, overwhelming and suffocating parts you didn’t like never actually happened.  I’m sitting here at this desk, feeling like it’s 2011, not really remembering why it was so crucial to run away from this place to begin with. I’m comfortable, relaxed and happy while I sit and reminisce about all the good times… that is, of course, until people drop by and try to meet with certain people without scheduling it and employees talk down to me because to them I’m just a “receptionist” and then I remember why I left in the first place.  And I remind myself to be smarter next time and never make the same mistake again. 

Until enough time goes by for me to forget all the negative aspects, remember all the good ones and do it all over again.