Sometimes, it's easy to forget how different my life is today from how it was 25 years ago.  I am sitting poolside as a guest at the same Country Club I worked at as a teenage dropout with no prospect for a real future.

I washed the dishes that these people dirtied and cooked the food that these people ordered.  I saw them as a different species.  Unapproachable, inscrutable, and odd.  They were the epitome of what I would never be.  We were intrinsically different.

Today, my daughter attends the same private school as them, she is invited to their parties, their homes, and their clubs.  And I'm just another one of them.  So here I am, ordering drinks and food from the kitchen where I labored.