It started with a phone call. “Are you busy?” She recognized her friend’s voice immediately. “That depends. What have you gotten yourself into?”
“I have a date.” She giggled a little. “Well, that’s not necessarily a problem.” “It is if I have nothing to wear.” She laughed. I told her she had an entire closet full of clothes to which she replied…”And apparently not one appropriate thing in it.”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
By the time she arrived, there were three dresses on the bed, two pairs of shoes in the hallway, and her friend standing in front of the mirror wearing one earring.
The invitation had been on her kitchen counter for almost two weeks. It was a perfectly nice invitation to a perfectly nice event being hosted by people she genuinely liked…which was precisely the problem. If she didn’t like them, this would have been easy.
She picked it up again.
Cocktails at six. Dinner at seven.
Her daughter was coming to town. It didn’t happen often enough anymore. Work brought her in occasionally, usually for a few days, and whenever the schedule allowed, they carved out an evening for dinner. Her daughter would ask the same question every time.
“Where do you want to go?” And she would give the same answer.
“I don’t care. As long as we’re together.”
Beginning her career in hospitality, Andrea developed an early understanding of service and the importance of creating seamless experiences through the coordination of multiple departments, people and operational functions. She later entered healthcare through the ancillary business side, gaining experience across biologics, durable medical equipment, laboratory, pharmacy, reimbursement and billing, healthcare technology and other services supporting healthcare operations.
That was all.
She knew exactly where the cards were, just past the front entrance on the right, which meant there was absolutely no reason for her to be standing twenty minutes later in an aisle labeled Travel & Adventure holding a book about Italy.
She wasn’t planning a trip to Italy.
She knew enough about chess to know that her grandson was making up the rules. She hadn’t played in years, so when he pulled out the board and asked if she wanted to play, she warned him that she might be a little rusty. He assured her that was fine because he knew exactly how to play.
Within five minutes, she knew that wasn’t entirely true.
She saw the shoes in the window.
Bright red. Not burgundy. Not wine. Not the tasteful shade of red that could almost pass for a neutral if you wore it with the right pants.
Red.
The kind of red that entered a room before you did.
She stopped. Then kept walking. She had absolutely nowhere to wear red shoes like that. Three stores later, she was still thinking about them. This annoyed her.
She had come to the shopping center because she needed a birthday gift for a friend and a new white blouse for herself. She had already found the gift. The blouse was proving more difficult, but she was committed to the mission.
What drew you to healthcare originally?
For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in teeth. I didn’t play house as a child, I played dentist. Growing up I knew a woman who was a Dental Hygienist and she worked 3 days a week and had a family. I liked that flexibility as I also wanted to eventually have a family.
She had no idea where she was going. That was unusual. She was good at know where she was going.
She made reservations. Checked directions. Looked at reviews. Knew what time things opened and approximately how long it would take to get there. She wasn’t obsessive about it. At least she didn’t think she was. She just liked having a plan.
But on this particular Saturday morning, she had none.
She had driven about forty minutes out of town to visit a little shop someone had mentioned weeks earlier. It turned out to be closed. Normally that would have irritated her. Forty minutes there. Forty minutes back. Nothing accomplished. A wasted morning.
She almost said no. Actually, she had already started to. “I don’t really…” Then she stopped. Her friend was looking at her across the table, waiting.
It wasn’t an outrageous suggestion. No one was asking her to jump out of an airplane, move to another country, or do anything remotely worthy of the expression on her face.
Her friend had simply asked if she wanted to take a beginner pottery class with her.
Pottery.
She knew absolutely nothing about pottery. She wasn’t artistic. At least she didn’t think she was. She had never been particularly good at making things with her hands, and she could already picture herself sitting at a wheel while everyone else created beautiful bowls and she produced something resembling a lopsided ashtray.
She wasn’t looking for anything in particular.
She had stopped at the grocery store on her way home because she was out of coffee and needed a few things for dinner. It was the same store she had visited for years. She knew exactly where everything was. Without thinking, she pushed her cart down the familiar aisles, reached for the same brands, and followed the same path she always had.
The she found herself standing in front of an entire wall of pasta sauce.
A few days ago, someone shared a video with me of a young valedictorian named Kyle Martin standing at a graduation podium.
He had accomplished exactly what he set out to accomplish. He had worked relentlessly, earned extraordinary grades, and reached the top of his class. When he learned that he had been named valedictorian, the feeling was everything he imagined it would be.
For about fifteen seconds.
Then came the sixteenth second.
