When I encounter you in this moment you’ve imagined but are surprisingly unprepared for, the moment your remarks are done, when you’re now eye to eye with me and those who scheduled this time to edify ourselves, you are now genuinely trying to hear my gentle inquiry and probing of your generally sane yet safely anodyne advice, I’m aware I am seeing signs of sorrow in the crease around your eyes as they squint to quell the mounting pressure of the sadness in your soul, the endless years enduring your parents’ neglect and disapproval and disappointment.

We meet at this conference and, now the encounter is occurring, you find this is what surprises you, I surmise: the thing you’ve thought about and prepared for for so many dreaming hours is taking its place in history and the sadness is telling you the history is passing you by, the great hope so surprisingly and swiftly squandered, just as mommy and daddy had feared.

I admired the you up on that dais moments ago and I must say I admire the you here now in this moment too for fighting the good fight, the naive and losing fight to put yourself outside of your own humanness and raise yourself even ever so slightly, ever so momentarily above the fray away from the riff raff and the smells – you’re judgemental, sure – but you’re trying to be good – as we stand this same ground and, yes, now you’ve found it, there it is now, you enter the realm of your more prepared remarks and the sorrow signs disappear and we exchange the time honored banalities and we feel certain we have done well, the registration fee worth every labor, and we exchange cards and head separately for the open bar.

This is a highlight moment in our careers one perhaps we’ll write about after fielding countless requests for book-length insights and wisdom, but that fate is yet to be determined, though I clearly imagine that glory-filled future as I awkwardly wave ta-ta from across the crowded lounge clutching the awkward glass of Chardonnay, another day’s work done.