Day One -- Deja Vu

Today begins my new career as a freelance marketer/bitch for hire.

Today is also the day that, after almost three years, I walk back into the agency I worked for from 1998 - 2003 -- five years of insane personalities, crazy stories, laughter, tears, and many, many designer handbags.

This is the agency of The Handbag Girls, where I was once told, "You've got all the skills -- now you just need to get a look." Where I was once handed a nail file and a bottle of nail polish and told, "Tricks of the trade!"

Also, the agency where I met some people who I will be linked to for life. Including my old boss (Who, strangely, has the same first name as the man who terrorized me at my last job) -- who had several projects ready for me when I called him last week.

Last night I dreamed that I was here, a strange combination of homecoming and fear, the fear that I just took a step back in time. The fear of being a young, impressionable, insecure woman again, subject to the insecurities and judgement of other women. I felt that a little when I walked inside. While people were hugging me left and right, some with a genuine affection, some with suspicion, some with a little schadenfreude -- or was that just me? They pointed out a place on the wall where, "there was a picture of you, and a cut up credit card, I swear, until just last week."

The thing is, I am older, smarter, more confident, less afraid today than I have maybe ever been. What is there left to be afraid of?

Besides a bad manicure, I mean.