Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

Follow along on my podcast Let Me Humble You. Streaming wherever you listen to podcasts

Allow me to Re-Introduce Myself

 Our story begins at an airport of all places. I know how cliché can I get? I feel like this is part two of a story that essentially is never ending. I’m sitting here at my gate, 30 minutes early, damn you punctuality anxiety. There is something about the airport that just makes me feel like I need to be on time. Well, no, in the words of my father “early is on time and on time is late.” So there is something in me that says “Get here extra early so you can sit and stare at the overpriced snacks from Hudson News, and avoid eye contact with you and the person seated 5 feet away from you who also woke up extra early to wait like a dickhead.” Where are they flying to anyway? Chicago? I always assume these people will play extras in my dreams later, like faces my subconscious has made a mental note of. Anyway, its 5am and I’m here. To think I rushed, like had pep in my step, that was until I realized if I move to fast I’ll trip over my thick ass Uggs and bust my ass, again.

So, I bet you’re thinking, quit stalling and tell me what you’re doing here. Well where we last left off I was giving advice about body issues, but where we really last left off I had fallen in love with my current boyfriend, I was figuring out working post pandemic and I had surprise! Gotten into grad school. So let’s back track a bit, all of those things are true, but what I really feel is that I am writing again for the first time. I heard a quote once that everyone has a specific perspective that impacts a decision they make, so in that sense we are all right, the whole point of consciousness is to do what we think is correct with the information that we have. Even hindsight is perspective from a time we didn’t experience yet. But despite the amount of information we have, our decisions got us here.

So here I am at the airport getting ready to board a flight to Seattle. I’m going for my MBA program. We have two trips we must take for a bootcamp like experience, and to be frank I am nervous. I wasn’t in the weeks leading up to it, possibly because during that time I was nervous to tell my boss that I was going, and before that I was knee deep in finals, and before that I was stressing over my healing journey.. you see how things add up? Now I am on my way to a new city on my own and the number one thing on my mind is how am I going to kill 3 hours between my arrival and checking into my hotel to hide.

Times like this I think about people who put on their dating profile that they love to travel. Which like why? I mean I love a good beach but that’s because I am going to lay out drunk on Pina Coladas while listening to songs from 2016. But traveling is a lot, and the idea of adventure, reminds me how little I trust myself. Because it’s just me, I mean sure I have a couple friends from the program I’ll be meeting there, but they’re like new friends you know? Not “sit with for hours doing nothing” friends, that’s the problem with online programs, everyone’s friends through a screen, and I know a lot about internet friends, from 11-14 I lived on the internet, it was my entire domain. No pun intended.

Much like the internet from Myspace to Facebook, I have gone from being the young 23 year old sitting in a mouse infested apartment with her roommate writing her future book, to a 28 year old executive who’s getting her degree and living with her boyfriend… writing pieces for her book...again. Those girls have an entire world in between them, but there is one common denominator.. being scared but saying fuck it and doing it anyway.

I think the real only difference between those two are the awareness of change. I am much more aware of my life transition than I was before. Like at 23 it was one foot in front of the other, be present because I had so much hope. Now I’m 28 and nearing the end of the era that was my chaotic 20’s and  so aware of how much I’ve…grown.

Its strange there is this realization that I am veering off into another version of myself and the answers that I have now I almost wish I could use to go back and save that young girl from heartache. To make matters more authentic I’m a fucking writer. So I took it upon myself to remember  and write down all the questionable things I’ve done…while most people just kind of block it out so when it regurgitates at 45 its so blurry, people can convince themselves it didn’t happen.

Here I am with a wealth of knowledge and experience stuffed into this 28 year old vessel and I am trying my best to figure out what it do with it. So, I decided to do what I do best, write. Going on this trip means being really independent and trying out a new place on my own and trusting myself. It’s basically how this introduction was born. It also means that I am almost done with my MBA program and now have to gear up for what’s next.

I had a co worker waltz into my office the other day, poking and prodding in what I was doing but masking it in a general check in, as his eyes peeked to my screen I thought to myself, ick. But he was asking about my degree what I’m planning on doing, and quite frankly outside of it being none of his business, a realization hit me once again that the good change I have so boastfully said is on its way, is like here. Moreover the good change is me, I am changing and I am transitioning and there is a different version telling these relatable stories.

I used to think in the beginning of my relationship that my life had gotten boring. That was it. I’d made it, degreed, healthy relationship, good family and friends, good job. I was now going to have to tell the stories of other people to stay entertaining. Boy was I wrong, as it turns out I am much more curious now that I am a full grown adult who still struggles to decide where to sit in an airport waiting area. Do I pick the spot with optimal people watching, or the quiet corner next to the family where I’m going to have to politely smile and admire their baby? And what does it say about me that I have zero interest in acknowledging said baby at all?

Listen we have a lot to unpack, the inside of my head has been doing everything in its power to not be present and not feel deserving, which is interesting considering my entire platform before now was structured in self-worth and self-value. Turns out it’s much easier to see that in others, but difficult to give that same grace to yourself. So, for now, yes on the surface I have it all, and to be candid it’s kind of true, but on the inside there is this little voice that says “remember when you?” and “if only you had known…” but can you blame me? ** inserts long tangent about modern media and how we have way too much access to opinions where the negative ones seem to be the loudest resulting in internalized judgement**

So, for now just like I found you when I was 23 sitting on my bed writing about the date I was going on, or mending the heart that was broken, or recapping the party I attended, or the dread of the supervisor I had to see this week… I am still at my core that same girl who’s head is half in the clouds, whose self-awareness is almost haunting, and who’s figuring it out just like you. So, let’s get started, shall we?