A lifetime ago, I worked for a research and development firm designing laboratories. I interacted with really smart people on a daily basis. I learned all kinds of science in all kinds of fields. Engineering, life sciences, oil and gas, agriculture. I worked on labs of all shapes and sizes for all kinds of purposes. It was my job to interpret their needs, get an understanding of their work and help them create a usable space. Then I took this to an entirely new and HUGE scope and moved to a university. This took my work to a whole new level. Now I was working with people who taught the next generation and pioneered new science. To say it was overwhelming was an understatement.

However, once you realize a few things, you get into the groove of things. Laughter is universal, admitting you do not understand something often leads to impromptu science lessons (professors are going to lecture, it is in their DNA), and some faculties are just unique entities and no matter how good you are, well, there will always be deficiencies. 🙂 But that is okay as that is why you build in contingencies!

In 2012, things went a little south with my health, and I had to leave all that behind (more on that in a later memory). I miss the work, the chaos, and the people. The people made the job what it was. Getting over missing the work and the chaos was easy, but all the great people I left behind is something I haven’t really gotten over.

When I left the R&D job, I left behind really good people, people who started my career and while there was a couple of hiccups with things, I will not soon forget the things I learned from my supervisor, K. I learned how to draw and think about mechanical systems. I can do heat load (and loss) calculations and I understand how industrial heating and cooling systems work. Not too many interior designers can do that!

At the university, there were so many amazing people! When I moved to the project side, the person I considered my supervisor was fantastic. A wealth of knowledge, kind, tough when he needed to be, but always willing to teach, help, and get in and help his people. My guys in the shop! The foremen to the guys on the tools. I can’t say enough. They always, always, always made me look good to the clients. Brought the job in on time and always got what I needed done (and I only sometimes had to bribe them with doughnuts). The clients I worked with were always reasonable (even the hard to work for ones), and my office bestie, J… To whom I owe dinner, who saved my sanity when everything went so terribly wrong that August morning and I never was able to go back to work…

Leaving them all behind was heartbreaking. Life marched on for everyone. Except for me, I felt. I kind of got stuck in 2012/2013. I kept waiting for my career to come back, but it never did. The surgery never made what was wrong better. I never got to go back, until like 2015 when I finally had to go back and clean out my desk and found out my life fit in a plastic shopping bag.

It didn’t really. I was more than a Safeway bag. Even though it took me until 2020 before I slowly started to realize just how much potential I had. Slowly, through new connections I was making, I began to understand that I had more to offer the world, in a different way. I just had to be open to it, I had to let go of the old, toss that shopping bag, and embrace new things. I had to let things grow from what was and let what was meant to be, come to fruition.

^{As with all my writing, everyone’s name has been abbreviated or changed to protect their identities.}