The Non-linear adventures of Greg Sandusky

Ugh, should’ve went to the restroom before I got up here. Oh well.

Greg made his way down the hallway and was nearly at the breakroom. He strode with a somewhat brisk pace; fast enough to convey intent and purpose but not quite so fast as to draw attention or to elicit query or concern from his colleagues. As he was approaching the obliquely shaped nurses’ station which housed three workstations in an awkward configuration with no regard to ergonomics or comfort, he saw something. The flash of ginger hair, belonging to someone who had long been removed from his life.

Is that Eliza? he mused to himself.

After placing his satchel and the package of outrageously caloric cookies on a table in the breakroom, Greg meandered out, stethoscope slung around his vest, clipboard in hand, and nothing to anticipate save for twelve-and-a-half hours of muted artificial lights, caffeine, and the inevitable migraine. But that wasn’t all, as it turned out.

“Greg Sandusky, I had a feeling that was you.”

“Eliza Cunningham, wow, I can’t believe it’s been 21 years.”

“It’s Reed now. But yeah, don’t remind me. We’re getting old.”

Indeed, more than two decades had passed since high school graduation. His former classmates were scattered to the winds; some with a gentle breeze, and others on a wind that was akin to the force of a jealous fury, which dispossessed them of their native soil and cast them to far away locales. Greg was one of the latter. He was more than a thousand miles from his address, yet sixty miles from his hometown. He was close to where life had made sense, once upon a time. It made sense because it was all that he had known until then- this triangular pocket of a rust belt state, decorated with farms, suburban sprawl, railroads, dirt roads, back alleys, highways, rich elites and river rats alike, and an increasingly curiously amalgamated population from nations across the globe.

Their brief conversation stirred a certain realization for Greg. The girls grow up and change their names. The ‘lovers turn into mothers’ as John Mayer sang. Many stay relatively close to home, others go far away. Some people seem to have it figured out, while others are charting a course with each step they take, unsure of the destination.

And that is ok.