I Looked at My Old University Graduation Photo and Didn't Recognize the Boy in the Frame

Dear Delyara, I found a digital copy of my university graduation photo in my old emails tonight while I was searching for an asset spreadsheet. I stared at the screen for ten minutes, completely paralyzed. The boy in that frame—standing outside the London campus with his degree in his hand, his hair clean, his eyes bright and full of an absolute, arrogant certainty that he was going to conquer the marketing world—looks like a completely different species to the man sitting in this guardroom tonight. Where did that boy go, Delyara? How did he end up wearing a cheap nylon security jacket with a plastic radio clipped to his shoulder, checking locks for an industrial park at 3:00 AM? I feel like I’ve let him down so badly that if he could see me right now, he’d turn around and walk straight into the river out of sheer disappointment.