Metaphorphosis.

So, I’ve mentioned Simple Jack twice before. I was really loath to mention him again but I had a startling epiphany this weekend revealing quite possibly the most bewildering, disturbing, and altogether disgusting parallel I could ever imagine.

His was a classic case of biting off more than he could chew. Trying to be something he wasn’t to try to get something he thought he wanted. From what I could decipher of his dribble, he had plenty of experience with docile brainless types. He was looking for more, not just a shell but a vessel with depth, full of thoughts and ambitions and questions and answers. Unfortunately for this crazy bitch it wasn’t until after we got together that I started to examine the cracks in his shell and noticed the fear seeping out. We were both slowly cracking because he wasn’t who he said he was, and was proving himself utterly incapable of becoming the man he thought he could be, and consequently he was completely ill-equipped to handle a CB like me. And so when he moved on, he stepped back, into the familiar realm of vacuous husks. And I spent a lot of time thinking, what a shame, that a being fortunate enough to be blessed with even this brief a period of consciousness chooses not to progress, not to advance, not to develop and grow, to be imprisoned by fear and thus self-fated to exist within the torturous cycle of dreaming, of striving, but never fulfilling.

And here comes the most unlikely of metaphors.

When I graduated from college, I went into banking because that’s what I thought I should do, since I went to school for finance and since everyone else seemed to want to do it (damn competitive streak). So then I got there, and I didn’t like it. I wanted more than that. I thought I was more than that. And that’s why I left banking, to go be more.

I swore I'd never go back. I poured money, brainpower, and time into grad school for a completely different subject. I thought post-graduation I'd get another job, I'd travel, meet different people and do different things. In short, I saw grad school as the door to Not Banking. But taking the unbeaten path is hard, particularly in a bull market when everything about the beaten path is attractive – the money, the familiarity, the fact that you’re en pointe qualified and can get there easily whereas others strive for it but can’t (fucking competitive streak!).

And so soon enough I found myself pounding familiar pavement. Why would I do that to myself! How could I be so stupid to take such a huge step back, to something I already knew was woefully inadequate! Did I just go back because it was familiar, despite not wanting it? Did I really “try” to get other jobs? Was it fear? Was I afraid of failure? Of change? That I couldn’t handle something more?

And that's where the metaphor ends.

The universe has a funny way of doing things. I understand that this economic crisis is the worst we’ve had since probably 1929, that people are losing their livelihoods and homes and ways of being. But to me, this is the second chance I thought I had already recklessly and shamefully wasted, and would never see again.

I don’t want to be the one who reached for something more but pulled back her hand because her arm got sore. Because the air got hot. Because she wasn’t sure what she was reaching for. Because she could look behind her and very easily grab something familiar, though less.

I love to dream and to strive, but I want to achieve and to fulfill, and I want to learn from what it takes to get there, to advance, to develop and grow, to be more than I am and what I thought I could be. I don’t think that as a vessel I am confined to a finite volume, I’m pretty sure I can keep filling up with life and still have capacity for more. Nonetheless, I don’t think I have any room to spare for fear. Even infinity has its limits.

So, that said, my lease is up at the end of June. Including school, I have spent nearly 12 years in New York, longer than I’ve lived in any other place. I love New York dearly, I grew up here, I found myself here, I became myself here. I will forever consider this my home, but I’ve realized that to truly break out of my cycle, home really isn’t where I should be right now. I know that I can resign myself to it or break out of it. And I also know that there ain’t no way in hell I’m fucking up this opportunity to get it right.

Accordingly, pretty soon, CB is hitting the road, and where she goes, nobody knows.

However, if you guys have suggestions for where I should go, what I should do, what I should eat, etc., then by all means enlighten a bitch! I said I’d get over the fear but I’m still working on that directionless part.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK.

I been here for years.

Doing a lot of shit I said I’d never do and then getting my ass kicked for it. When was the last time I wrote here? Who knows, who cares. Right?

Yeah. This is like when Sydney Bristow shows up 2 years later after being brainwashed and doing a lot of dirty work for the enemy, then she’s all, what Vaughn you married this blonde ho I was only away for like 2 weeks! And then Vaughn is all, bitch please you were gone for 2 years, and not just gone but like, DEAD.

Yeah. So, after 2 years, I’m back from the dead. Kind of.

REWIND.

Tantalus. Grad school. I finish up with that. I spend a month in Southeast Asia climbing hundreds of steps (all temples MUST be built upon mountains of steps) and exploring my emotional peak. I then go into associate training for banking.

Huh?

Stay with me.

I know I said I’d never go back, but I did. I totally lived up to my name, and I’m thoroughly ashamed. What the fuck was it? Greed, lack of creativity, sloth…

Whatever it was, it was a complete fucking disaster. Economy tanks (“It’ll never be worse than post-9/11” – my famous last words). Coworkers for the most part suck. When you’re not the brightest bulbs in the bunch, you gotta make up for it somehow… and that usually means you develop yourselves as ruthlessly manipulative two-faced douchebags, who either make a conformist bitch like me do all your work then drag her name through the mud, or never worked with me but feel like jumping on the name-dragging mud bandwagon. Don’t they sound delish and exactly the kind of jackals who can really nurture a career? Oh and they suck so badly, that I get myself into a pseudo relationship with one (albeit one who was not involved in mudslinging).

WHAAAAT.

You remember, that one I went rollerblading for and then didn’t call or visit or show any emotion when I ended up in the ER. Who, apart from being an emotionally unavailable and very likely homosexual sociopath (I’m pretty sure he’s the basis for the Simple Jack character from Tropic Thunder – yeah I have great taste), cheats on me with a college student who when I see her appears to be the living incarnate of those little trolls you used to put on your pencils in elementary school. And I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m saying that because it’s true. But funny enough, it was the same politically venomous environment that drove SJ out of the country and back to Europe. Though I like to think that I had a little something to do with that too.

But back to me.

So, to recap, what does being a conformist bitch get me? The unique, high profile, upwardly mobile opportunity to rot in a dungeon, 24/7, with Simple Jack in front of me dialing up hos, and a hundred thousand knives in my back.

And then it came.

I thought I’d be angrier about it. I thought I’d spew all the venom I’d been absorbing, I thought I’d spit it in his face and burn the place down. Instead I just took my money and ran.

“I’m going to have to let you go” = Red Sea parting.


Let my people go!

You know, the first time I got out of prison it hadn’t quite reformed me. I had a lot of fight left, I had a lot of shit to prove (“prove”), I couldn’t figure out how to adapt to the outside world. That was probably because it was a prison break, I bust myself out and when you’ve been fighting for so long, made a career of it, you just turn every corner looking for the next fight. And so when you can’t find a good one you do some bad shit and go straight back to jail, though in my case you do pass GO and collect a crazy signing bonus doing so. But this second time around, it’s different. I’m done.

I mean it.

No really!

And it’s not so much that I had to take 5 months to get here, the seeds of this decision were probably subconsciously planted a long time ago, and finally broke ground when the warden unlocked the gates. These lovely 5 months have just been detox, stepping out from behind the shadow of my former self. Sure, I’m bleeding cash and I have zero direction, but I'm shedding dead weight and my silver streaks are turning back brown. The only thing I haven’t kicked, as you may well have noticed, is the insomnia. But maybe I should just go with it, as some of my best ideas have been borne in a semi-somnambulant state. Regardless, psychologically, I’m in the best shape ever.

So call it what you will – renaissance, rebirth, resurrection. Doesn’t really matter as those things should all be happening continuously, if I’m doing things right. What really matters is, this bitch is back.

For real.