Do you remember the first day on your own?

The day you stepped onto that swaying, shaking rope bridge over the chasm, without a job, in charge of your own fate?

Here’s what I remember.

I had set up an office in the basement. My desk was a folding table.  I had a stack of yellow pads.  A dozen Ticonderoga pencils in cleaned-out soup can.  Cheap-ass business cards. My phone (a low-cost ‘teen line’ as they called it back then) was connected by a wire that hung down from the ceiling.  A typewriter (Yes, that’s how freaking long ago this was) on the table.  A fresh new ribbon.

Behind me, the furnace chuffed.  The hot water heater came on now and then.

In front of me, the cinder block walls, weeping a little wet as always.

Upstairs, right above my head, I could hear my daughter, maybe 14 months old, padding around in her non-skid foot pajamas.  Playing around with pots and pans and her dollies, like all was well.

I could hear my wife, upstairs, too, following her around.

My wife and my girl upstairs.

Me, downstairs at a folding table.

I was never so scared in my life.

And your first day?  What was it like?