Everything Old is New Again.

My parents divorced when I was very young. After the divorce, my father moved into his mother's home, and on weekends my sister and I would go to their home.

My father painted signs. In our hometown, if you needed a sign painted, you went to my father. He was a master at free-hand lettering and his work was beautiful. In the summer, he'd do his signs in the garage, but in the winter he'd have to go to the basement. If he had a particularly tight deadline, he could get a little testy. Any movement in the house would make him crazy, and I remember that many times he would come raging from the basement demanding that my sister and I stop whatever we were doing that was so noisy.

The stress and panic was overwhelming. At our mother's home, we lived in apartments and we were told that we would have to be quiet so we wouldn't disturb the neighbors, or we'd be thrown out into the street.

More stress and panic.

Of course, the ultimate was when we visited our other grandmother and her husband, when we were basically only permitted to sit in the chair and stare at the wall.

I now work in an office that is essentially one big room, and sit across from my two bosses, both of whom are very focused.

And every day, I go back into work and feel like I'm six years old again.