Love, Career and Falling On Your Ass

I started my career in Chicago during the ancient days when people commuted to offices, daily. We dressed in business professional attire, but we could go casual by removing our coats in the office. We sat at cubicles and coveted the window-facing seats that were reserved for the sales team. Our office had a clear hierarchy of importance. The more revenue your role contributed to the bottom line, the higher up you were placed in the hierarchy of importance. This is the climate in which my career began.

When this company hired me they offered an annual salary of $45,000. At the time, I was working three jobs. In the early morning I delivered the Wall Street Journal. During the day I worked at a running specialty store. In the evening I became a barista at a local coffee shop. My combined annual income for those three jobs was less than $20,000. So, when an offer of $45,000 came in I accepted the offer without hesitation. No negotiating. No questions about benefits. I felt like I had won the lottery and began plotting which car I would buy. I imagined myself living in a fancy condo perched along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Michael Jordan and John Cusack would be my neighbors. The doorperson would know me by name and I would be his favorite occupant because I would tip him in $20 bills. My expectations were reset when I discovered how much it cost to live in Chicago. A few weeks later I moved into a questionable house in a low-cost part of the city. Once I settled into living in Chicago, I started thinking about love and how I’d like to find it.

My commute to and from work was clock-like in precision. I walked two blocks east to catch Bus #8 on Halsted. Then, I rode 24 blocks north to Jackson (The bus stop at Jackson and Halsted will become important in my story of failed love.). I walked one block south to Adams. Then, it was a straight shot to our office. Let’s go back to Jackson and Halsted.

A popular restaurant sat in front of the bus stop at Jackson such that when the bus doors opened you felt like you were stepping directly into the restaurant. During warm months restaurant patrons sat outside beneath colorfully striped umbrellas. They drank pretentious drinks and I imagined them sipping with their pinky finger extended into the air. That never happened, but it felt like it should. It was not a warm month when I failed a love. It was January and the city languished beneath a burden of ice and snow. People sat inside the restaurant and frosted windows partially obscured their pinky extended sipping. This is the season in which I thought I had found love.

One morning, the bus doors hissed open and I began to step from the bus. As I descended the steps I looked into the restaurant window. A waiter stood at a table by the window feverishly taking food orders. Her blond hair was held in a pony tail except for a whisp that had been jostled free in the activity of her work and now lay across her forehead. She tucked the liberated hair behind her ear. In that same movement she looked up. We made eye contact through the window. Her hand paused behind her ear. We both smiled and it felt as though time knew what was happening and slowed itself so that we could linger in the moment. Then, time continued with its day and so did we.

The next day I got dressed hoping I would see her again. I chose the colors my mother always told me looked best on me. I exchanged my puffy coat for a wool top coat that made me look more important than I was. As my bus lumbered north on Halsted I imagined how my next exchange would happen with the waiter. We would again make eye contact. We would share a smile and she would motion for me to come into the restaurant. I would enter and ask for a table for one. She would come to my table and ask if she could take my order. I would ask for two coffees and she would ask, “Are you expecting someone else?” I would respond, “Yes, I’m hoping you’ll join me. Do you like your coffee black?” She would smile and say, “Yes, I like my coffee black. My shift ends in 10 minutes.”

We would sit drinking coffee with our pinky fingers skyward and fall in love. I would be 2 hours late to work and it would be worth my manager’s disapproval. That is how I imagined things would go. This is what really happened.

The bus stopped and the doors hissed open. I straightened my tie as I walked toward the door. Leaning down, I looked into the restaurant and saw her standing at the table directly in front of the bus door. My plan was coming together. As I stepped from the bus she looked up. We made eye contact and shared another smile. This is where I imagined she would motion for me to come into the restaurant. Instead, I took the final step from the bus to the sidewalk. I was so fixated on her I did not notice the mirror-smooth patch of ice my foot was moving toward.

I can’t tell you what happened next because concussions have a way of scrambling your short-term memory. The bus driver would explain that when my feet hit the ice I immediately fell backward and hit my head on the bus, knocking me out cold. My feet flew skyward like a pretentious pinky enjoying a beverage. My laptop bag landed in a swill of melted snow and automotive oil. Mud and snow splattered across my topcoat and crisp dress shirt. Other passengers stepped over my motionless body to get to their jobs. The bus driver helped me out of the way so he could continue his route.

The moment was not irredeemable. My love could have rushed from the restaurant to ask if I was ok. She could have helped me inside and we could have sipped coffee together while I recovered. These things did not transpire. I retrieved my laptop bag from the putrid puddle and stood up. As I walked past the restaurant I glanced inside hoping to see her sympathetic reaction. She stood with a gaggle of other waiters pointing at me. They all laughed as I stumbled down the sidewalk. I did not find love on that day. Love was waiting for me an hour north in a hospital in Lake Forest, IL. A year would pass before we met. She did not drink coffee or alcohol, but when she smiled I felt funny inside. I also felt no need to wear a top coat or a tie with her because she was not impressed with those things.

Love is a funny thing. We spend a lot of time plotting how we’ll earn it. Then, when we truly find it, we realize love, in its truest form, cannot be earned or bartered or negotiated. It is freely given and freely received or it is something else entirely.