500+

I remember when LinkedIn first started, it seemed pretty cool to me, and even though I was at the bottom of the corporate food chain, I became a first adopter upon launch in 2003.

I still believed back then in. . . If not in big business or corporations per se . . . I still believed in the creative force of the human spirit.

My first non-manual job didn’t come till I was 26.

Working as a receptionist at a fancy little ad agency in Harvard Square.

Ann Taylor was across the street, and my wardrobe began in earnest.

Never having new clothing as a child and into early adulthood. . .I was hungry for threads, wanting of fashion.

I actually had a pair of leather pants for a blink.

God so long ago. . .yet seems sometimes, but a moment passed.

I had such hopes. I didn’t want to be some high-powered businesswoman. . .but I had wanted a career with more magnitude . . .

Now, now it all seems hamster wheel foolish, but there were no instructions, no family, friend, or foe to keep me righted.

I bought into the belief that I would be a loser without a college degree. . .

Thankfully I didn’t have the means to go to an expensive school or the balls to take out big loans.

I paid my last student loan payment in 2009. I can remember sitting in my cube at work and hitting the payment send button, and then burdening myself in 2010 with a…