When I Was Your Age...
...I didn't know jack. But I sure thought I did.
Spoiler alert: I did not attend “The Great American State Fair” over July 4th weekend (I think a tumbleweed did, though). Instead, I plucked my oldest niece Anna Grace from where she lives in the DC area and brought her to me in Vegas, a trip I gifted to her for her birthday – which, incidentally, is December 25th. Yup, that’s right, a Christmas baby, my little Capricorn queen. And for the record, I have NEVER double gifted her aka “This is your birthday AND Christmas present” – not ONCE.
This was Anna’s first trip to Sin City, but not her first trip to visit me. She’s always been down to travel. I brought her out to see me in Portland twice, first in July 2019, the summer before her senior year of high school (which got wrecked by COVID, including no prom and no graduation), and again in May 2024 after she graduated college. She’s 24 now, or 24 and a half to be precise. I wasn’t much older than that when she was born, 27 and a half to be precise, living over 2800 miles away, so I didn’t hold her for the first time until she was around three months old. She screamed at me for two hours straight on night one, but the next day, if memory serves, I had her solo and under my charge for a spell, and put all my babysitting experience from ages 11 (!) to 16 to good use. During this time, she somehow managed to poop UP her neck, but hey, nothing will bond you more quickly than helping someone deal with their shit.
Anna is an avid, passionate WNBA fan, and the Las Vegas Aces just happen to be her favorite team, so we planned the timing of her trip around their schedule. I scored good seats for the July 3rd game, Aces v. Chicago Sky at T-Mobile Arena, and we made sure to get there when doors opened to snag one of the Aces Bang-a-Banners being handed out to the first 7,500 fans inside. I’d never been to a WNBA game before and it was ELECTRIC, including a game that went into overtime and a challenge from the Aces coach Becky Hammon, resulting in the initial call being overturned and changing the entire trajectory of the game.
Anna’s in-depth knowledge of the WNBA across all teams also made the experience all the more special. She’s always been an athlete, including swimming and volleyball, and she’s currently working as a volleyball coach for high school regional teams and working as admin at the same facility. On the drive back to the house after the game, I thought about what I was doing for work at her age. My mid 20s landed in the late 1990s on the cusp of Y2K, when temping was all the rage. My first temp-to-perm role was as a Marketing Assistant with IKON Office Solutions. Picture The Office before The Office (UK or US version), but instead of paper sales, it was copiers. I was somewhere between a Pam Beesley and a Kelly Kapoor.
Around the same time, my lifelong bestie Carey had scored a temp-to-perm role at a much larger (though also much more loathed at the time) company, Louisiana-Pacific, but hey, it was like at least a dollar more an hour, maybe two. I think she pulled some strings with HR to get me an interview, and I ended up at L-P in a coordinator role with Corporate Communications, under the direction of a brand new department head. When I would get bored at IKON (which was daily), I taught myself how to use the MS Office suite, so at L-P, I somehow talked my new boss into letting me handle creating PowerPoint presentations for the C-suite. This is how a 23-turning-24 year old ends up on the company’s private corporate jets headed to places like Boston and Atlanta with the sole responsibility of hitting the next slide button for the CEO presenting to a conference room full of suits, ties, pantyhose, and pumps.
My corporate jet setting life came to a close when I asked for a raise. I remember preparing my pitch, doing the math, presenting the ask as to how it broke down per day. It was something like six dollars, or maybe it was just four dollars. I do remember it was the exact amount I paid for my daily parking, thinking I was so brilliant for framing it this way. I’d also become pretty tight with my boss, even babysitting his kids from time to time (perhaps that experience is the most valuable from my life resume?). So SURELY he would not say NO. After all, I was 24. I had paid my DUES (I was, what, maybe a year at that point with that company, at best? TENURED!). I had PROVEN myself. I was OWED.
Apparently, I was the only one who felt this way, because he said NOPE and I countered that with a BYE-BYE and gave notice the next day (exhibit A of being a Leo sun sign). Three weeks notice, but even so, I quit with nothing else lined up, which was real, real risky for someone quite literally living paycheck to paycheck. As my days left countdown began, the vibe between me and my boss was extremely contentious for the first few days. But maybe it was my Virgo rising sign or my Sagittarius moon that instinctively knew burning bridges was generally never a good idea. Or maybe I just didn’t like the idea of anyone being mad at me. I asked for another one-on-one meeting and surprised myself with how directly (and respectfully) I spoke to him about the tension, and how I didn’t want things to end like this. We had a good heart to heart that lifted any negativity right out of the air, and we are still in touch to this day. He and his lovely wife even came to my 40th birthday party (I threw myself a prom, ripping off that idea from Kevin Smith). We’ve had many laughs about the raise, the denial of my request (he has no recollection as to why he said no), and my bravado with quitting in response.
And it all worked out, of course. I managed to scrounge up some freelance marketing for a few different organizations while working part-time at Borders bookstore for about six months, then landed a full-time gig as Marketing Manager for Dark Horse Comics, where I would go on to become Marketing Director during my five year tenure (a story for another time).
When I think back to the SG mid-twentysomething years, it’s not about the temping or the corporate jets or demanding a raise or eating a lot of ramen or praying my rent check wouldn’t bounce. What I remember the most is this pervasive feeling like I should have known more, or had it all figured out… whatever that means. I’m over twice that age now, with my next birthday coming up at the end of this month, and what I’ve learned is that the “not knowing” never ends. There’s no expiration date or finish line. It’s a part of life. It comes and goes. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. And quite frankly, it’s almost always where the magic happens.
Anna’s living her own cycle of that right now, and she’s figuring it out one season at a time. I have no idea what her version of the PowerPoint “next slide” job is going to be, or what she’ll be doing on her own 40th birthday, or what she’ll know by then that she can’t see from here. But I do know she’s doing GREAT. And that I’m incredibly proud of this thoughtful, wicked funny, beautiful, intelligent, kind young woman. I also know she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be. And best of all, I know what her face looks like when her favorite team goes into overtime and wins the game.
xo,
SG
Hopeless Semantic lands in your inbox on Wednesdays. If someone in your life belongs here, send them this way.