Goodbye Starbucks Hello Park Avenue

So as of last week, I have officially joined the gainfully employed putting an end to my romantic status as the struggling writer. Goodbye Starbucks, my office for the past three years, hello Park Avenue South. My friends feared for my own adjustment. I feared for the adjustment of my kids. But so far I can report that everyone has survived.

After a four-year sabbatical from corporate America, I admit it’s really nice to put on a great suit and cute shoes and go to work. Maybe it’s the accessories and the reason to wear mascara again, or maybe it’s the regular paycheck, but it does feel good to be back at work in a real environment again – the kind that has other employees aside from the barista behind the espresso bar.

The most surreal thing about being back is how everyone seems so much younger than when I left. After I left “Dateline NBC” I spent a couple of years working from home for a San Francisco-based Internet company. Back then I was still a fresh faced, childless, not quite 30-year-old. Now, well, I’m solidly on the other side of that number. And wherever I turn, it’s obvious that many more women are much younger than me. Their lack of dark circles makes them easy to spot. Don’t know if that really reflects their age or their not having small children.

I guess I imagined myself cryogenically preserved in the workforce, a pleasantly seasoned but still spry 29-year-old. And yet I’ve returned as a 30-something mommy of two. My first day at work, my assistant instantly made me feel old. Of course she didn’t mean to. But when we met and chatted about her background, I realized that a college friend of mine had coincidentally taught at the same private school she had attended in NYC. And our conversation went something like this:

“What’s your friend’s name? Maybe I know her,” my assistant asked sweetly.
“You wouldn’t know her, I’m sure you were long gone when she taught there,” I said.
“Well what’s her name?” she asked again.
“Abby Katz,” I said.
“Oh my God, she taught me eighth grade science and I think seventh grade science too.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said in denial.

But then I did the math. And she was right.
A college friend of mine was old enough to have taught my assistant science when she was twelve years old. Wow, now I really felt old.

But aside from my age shock, everything else is moving along nicely. Although, I do find myself missing that comforting buzz of the espresso machine.