average life

I quickly changed into my blue shorts that I wore when I exercised.  They had lately only been worn to bed, but the weather was proving too tempting and I had decided to go for a run in the park.

When I crossed Piedmont Avenue and entered the park at the 12th Street gate, I saw I wasn’t the only one that seemed to have had my idea.  The park was fairly busy with joggers, cyclists, rollerbladers, and just-plain-strollers.

I started to jog.

I tried to control my breathing and my pace.  Frequently when I ran I started off too quickly and soon tired.  This time, however, I could tell I was going to be able to run longer than normal.  I decided to run around the lake.  The daylight quickly faded as I turned the corner at the east end of the circle path.  As I ran, I looked over to the buildings along the Midtown stretch of Peachtree.  Their lights were already on and their glow reflected off the sky.  I remembered when I first saw them almost two years earlier.

I left the highway on the Pine Street exit and turned left onto Peachtree.  I held the Google Maps printout against the steering wheel of my ’92 Toyota Paseo and craned my neck to see the numbers on the buildings.  I was looking for 860 Peachtree.  I was getting close.  Was I going to work in one of these buildings?  Surely not.  I realized that the address I was looking for was probably in a smaller building in between a couple of highrises…or something.  Still, in between highrises was better than no highrises at all.  As I approached 860, I grew excited.  I already decided that I wanted to work here.  I didn’t know where I would live or how I would live as an intern, but I knew I wanted to work in this neighborhood.

I saw a Starbucks ahead on the corner and checked my handwritten notes to confirm that yes, the building across the street was…really cool looking.  860 Peachtree was a twenty-three floor steel and blue glass midrise which reflected the clouds.  I would work there?  I turned left into the parking deck and walked around to the front lobby.  The concierge greeted me with a smile and I walked to the call box with a poor attempt at familiarity.  I found the number and checked the clock on my cell phone.  I was about fifteen minutes early….  I decided to wait, so I sat down on one of the sofas.  I avoided looking at the concierge, but let my eyes wander everywhere else.  The stone floor carved a winding path into the carpet to the elevator lobby which lay beyond a locked glass door.  Large plants were scattered around the room and on the other side of the concierge’s desk stood a three-foot model of the building itself.  The ceiling was at least twenty-five feet overhead and my eyes followed the walls all the way down to my shoes.  My feet shifted uncomfortably in them.  I had woken up before 5am to make it to Atlanta in time for the interview and back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for a 1pm class.  In my early morning stupor, I was unable to find black socks and I reasoned that no one would look at my ankles, so I put on white socks with my black shoes and black pants.  I now deeply regretted that reasoning and tugged at the bottom of my pants.  I tried to distract myself by looking through my resumes again, but not closely enough that I might find an error that was uncorrectable.

After fifteen minutes, I went to the call box and typed in the number.  The voice on the other end gave me a suite number and an elevator code, which I scribbled on the back of my resume folder.

Upon reaching the 14th floor, I realized I only wrote down the elevator code, not the suite number.  After a quick call on my cell phone, I got the suite number and was soon knocking on the door.  A man answered and introduced himself.  He was whom I had been talking to, but he looked younger in person.  He invited me in and the first thing I noticed was the fifteen foot floor-to-ceiling windows that paneled one side of the apartment.  Beyond the windows lay the north side of Midtown with Buckhead beyond.  I wanted to work there…

I continued running down the path.  To the left, I could see the building that I wanted to work in so badly.  The company had since moved to a much larger space in Inman Park.  As I took in the skyline, I realized that it had been a while since I had really looked at it.  As a kid, I had always wanted to live in the city and that desire grew even stronger on my mission in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

And I realized that I was doing it.

Near the end of the loop, I cut across the green and ran to 7th Street.  I stopped into CVS, picked up some random household items, and leisurely walked back to my apartment.  Once there, I sat on my couch with the balcony door open and watched the lights as the steady hum of the city floated in.