Transcript
One of my homework assignments
was to go to the office every day.
And when I say the office I'm talking about
a university building with 40 full-time faculty,
about a third of whom are in the building at any given time
for various and sundry reasons.
I was on the fifth floor of the College of Nursing building,
and my office was right in front of the elevator.
And so I said, "OK, I'll go to the office."
And the first day I went to the office,
I got off the elevator, I unlocked my door,
I walked in the office, I closed the door and locked it.
And I sat there for about an hour, and I felt angry.
There's that anger again that no one wants to talk about.
I managed to stay for about an hour,
and the next day I didn't go at all, and then the third day
I went back, and that day I thought, "OK, she's going to
ask me about this, she's going to hold my feet to the fire."
So I went to the office, I opened my door, turned on
the lights, I sat down, and within about 10 minutes,
Maria, one of the administrative assistants,
she's wonderful, she's German, she came flying in my door,
and she was so happy to see me.
She did all the talking, and by the time she finished talking,
my anxiety, my anger had subsided about being there, and
I found myself laughing and smiling and happy to see her.
And it popped into my head, "Gee, I need to run down
the hall and see if Barb is here," who's one of my
faculty-member friends, and I did.
And I had a really great day, I lasted almost the whole day.
So then I started going in every day, and before I knew it,
I was happy to go in, I didn't close the door
unless I really had to get something done.
I went to lunch, we would walk across this beautiful,
wonderful campus here in Charleston
to a fabulous little sandwich shop and have lunch.
And I was back among the living.