in the last four months, i acknowledge that i have been uncharacteristically quiet.

this can be attributed either to the fact that i've seen my already-low-self-esteem kicked, run over, and deep fried ... twice. or it can be attributed to conceding to the transformational experience thrust onto me -- the one that i resisted for the first five months i was swimming in quicksand here.

or this quietness can just be attributed to the fact that i realize that i'm not as witty nor as quippy as i once was when i was on sabbatical (read: jobless and pissed ... albeit no less cynical).

when i was considering accepting my offer to this particular business school, the mother of one of my favorite youth group advisees told me that her largest criticism is that the school's strategy is to "break you down to build you back up."

ppsshh ... break me down? after surviving a boss who made me cry no less than three out of five days a week? when you've had newspapers hurled at you, been asked if you offered a colleague oral sex (i didn't ... not that i remember anyway), and been told your curly hair and insufficient make-up might scare off clients, a little business multiplication doesn't seem so imtimidating. ppsshh ... break me down?

well, it turns out that being stupider than the 90 people you sit with every day is way worse. i get it: i'm broken. and i'm waiting patiently to be built back up. but when does that happen, again? i'm starting to lose said patience.

because what is comes down to is that i'm sex deprived i'm not as smart as i once thought i was. (i mean, i'm sex deprived too, but that's not the current focus of this vignette any more than sexual desire usually is.)

when i left this place in november, the answer to the question "how are you?" was truly "not okay." (but honestly, if the world actually stopped to listen to peoples' responses to "how are you?" the world would probably cease to move forward.)

i felt inadequate. compromised. and fat. i was suffering because what i wanted -- to beat the system, to feel equal to if not better than my peers, and to get some ass -- was out of reach. even in moments of the utmost clarity -- the ones where i realized that comparing oneself to 899 of the smartest fucking people in the world is kind of unnatural -- i just felt ... well, fat.

and yet a few months later, despite the fact that my strategy professor profoundly embarrassed the hell out of me, i lost a multi-hundred million dollar contract negotiation, and have an upcoming final that i know i will fail no matter how hard i study for it (and that's today alone) -- despite and in spite of these personally disarming and deeply unsettling fuck ups:

i'm okay.

really, i think i'm okay.

relatively, at least.

because when i strip away the hours i spend worrying, pacing in my apartment, and fighting off escalating panic attacks, i think this place has made me much more aware of the world in which i live and much more appreciative of the people in this world with whom i live.

albeit, it has also made me far more impatient with stupidity.

and way more appreciative of meaningful sex.

i guess in the end, not having what we want and not being whom we want is deeply heart breaking.

... but as tough as wanting something can be, the people who suffer most are those who don't know what they want at all.