Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like a loser more times than usual in the typical Greg Loesch day.

I recently took a new job with a company in a new place where there are a lot of new people that speak a lot of languages that I don’t understand (which is anything other than English) that walk and drive on new roads that lead to a lot of new places where there are more people that have a lot of new personalities and linguistic abilities, too. Yesterday was my first day of real work on a project site. As a person with struggles of insecurity, new experiences aren’t usually at the top of the list of enjoyable things. There are too many opportunities to look vulnerable and feel out of place. Day 1 on the project… check and check.

The day started with a dismal, cloudy, rainy view from my 12th floor apartment window. Having to walk to the metro stop, this added another complication to my already overloaded brain. To give you an idea… here is an honest-to-goodness scenario I played out in my head:

“What are the chances that I get my laptop bag stuck inside the metro door (computer in the train, me out) and have to decide between losing my life or my new work computer? or perhaps I could keep both if I chose to drop my bag on the train… some nice person might return it. Shoot… but my contact info isn’t in the bag. Maybe if I took out my phone and squeezed it through the crack in the doors my jammed arm has created, some person could use my phone to call my mom who could call my roommate who could tell me that Elsie, the sweet little German lady that works in one of the Smithsonian museums, has my laptop. Oh wait, I have security set up on my phone. Now I may lose my laptop and phone… and if I do get my phone back somehow it’s probably been wiped because somebody swiped the incorrect pattern 10 times!”

Continued…