A lot of my writing energy has been spent on attempting to adequately describe my descent from grad student with goals and gumption to...now.  Part of me wonders why I even write or talk about it anymore.  It's old news.  I suppose I find it hard to believe that anyone could understand, not because they haven't experienced anything like it, but instead because I never seem to explain it well enough.

The past version of me who moved to Manhattan is/was much more courageous and adventurous.  I want to be her again.  I just cannot decide what led to my confidence melting like cheap wax, drip by drip.  Onto a fancy tablecloth from which I will never clean it out.  Now, I do have a stain removal guide written by Martha Stewart herself, and if it mentions wax, I'm pretty sure it says "do X, Y, and Z immediately and it'll be like new."  The problem is "immediately."  I've let this bleak mark set for almost three years now.  I'm stuck with it.

As I barrel towards a series of tax preparation clinics planned and managed in part by yours truly, as well as a conference entitled "Be Great," I think to myself, simultaneously, "somebody somewhere will think this is valuable experience," and "what the heck does any of this have to do with what you originally set out to accomplish?!"  Have I been redirected, without ever being directed in the first place?

Lately all I can do is radiate resentment for that one woman at a job fair who with one single facial expression and an off-hand comment dismissed and destroyed every bit of experience I thought was most valuable on my resume.  Because they were internships and volunteering and work-study.  I think we all know that the idea of bigger salary as a sign of higher quality is quite backwards.  Just look at Wall Street.  So if in America, we fail upwards...am I actually succeeding?

Stay tuned for my unsent letter to Mr. Boy Scout Man who dared to ask me "what are you going to do with that?" (meaning my degree).