One of those people...

Working my new job has felt much like being dropped in the middle of the ocean: though I'm swimming furiously, I'm not entirely sure which way the land lies...

Today, at 6:30pm I walked out of my office into the brisk, clear New York City night air. Looking north along Sixth Avenue I could see Radio City Music Hall, the GE building and Rockefeller Center, the Time-Life Building, Simon and Schuster, McGraw-Hill, and others I don't even know enough to mention. I was wearing a sharp suit and tie with a snappy overcoat and shined, dress shoes. I was carrying a blackberry/cell phone, and I had just finished putting together my to-do list for tomorrow, which includes calls to Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and perhaps even Sofia, Bulgaria (That last one is iffy, though).

And as I strode across the flagstones I marveled at my job with a major global media company, and my salary, and my mid-town Manhattan office, and I realized with some clarity that I was one of those people.

I had never planned on becoming one of those people, though upon reflection how many of us ever did? And I'm not appalled at the turn of events, not at all. Don't get me wrong, it's not a long, snide "those," as if I were trying to keep Jews out of a country club in Rhode Island or anything. It's said with with wonderment and awe at the way life's journey unfolds, the roads traveled, choices made, and expectations met, unmet, and undreamt of.

I don't mind being one of those people, and it's not like I didn't see it coming or anything. I actually look forward to being so good at being one of those people, that before too long I'm one of those people with a VP in their title... :)

But the me at sixteen writing incendiary papers for my US History class, the me at 20 who planned on redefining Shakespeare for a whole new generation, or even the me at 30 who only planned on staying in NYC for six more months - all those Dan's would be baffled by who I am today. Not disgusted, I hope. Nor disappointed. But they would shake their collective heads and say "A suit? An office? THAT company?"

A suit. An office. A clear Manhattan night, and a job that people think is important enough that they pay me well for it.

I'm one of those people.