Tip-Toes

I've known about my impending job training for a while, but as the day finally draws near (just two more weeks!!), the reality of it is actually starting to hit me: I'll be commuting to mid-town Manhattan to train & test my nose with one of the best perfumers out there, in one of the most widely-known and well-respected places of instruction in the fragrance industry. Training as a 'nose' in New York City has such a glamourous ring to it, no?

Even as I write this my stomach forms little pretzels. I am nervous. I want to be a good learner. I want to improve. I want the teacher to think I'm a good student. I am dreading the early morning winter commutes: wake at 5am (if not earlier), walk to bus station, ride bus, cram onto subway, pass a warm cozy Starbucks without the time to actually drink any warm cozy coffee, smell for 8 hours a day with nothing but a 30-minute lunch break and speak to, well, no one.

When I first became interested in the fragrance industry I'd read about perfumers who trained with my company. In the back of my mind I was really awe-struck, and somewhat jealous, and wondered how they were lucky enough to make it. To me that was the pinnacle of 'making it,' yet I only allowed it to be a quick whisper of a daydream. I never actually said to myself, "I want to go THERE," because of...fear of failure...a fear of not making it. Even though it was a goal in the back of my mind, I knew it was a very high reach. And I am a pretty small girl.

But the lesson is learned: reach, reach reach. Keep stretching and reach. No matter what. And this is why, despite my years of frustrations, disappointments, and disapprovals of boyfriends who have unlikely goals of becoming famous drummers and songwriters (goals which have always, without fail, thrust large wedges between us), I can't blame them for wanting. Not only can I not blame them, but also, I have to give them their own room to reach.

Because when you realize, half-unbelieving, that a dream of yours is coming true, you can only hope that the same thing happens for the people you love(d), and that they can grasp their own little piece of happiness, too.