my personal mentor and career protege, gabby, came up with my favorite analogy of the inherently transient nature of the typical DC experience. (yeah, i've written about it before.) she always said she felt like she was in mtv's show the real world: the issues and premise were the same. but the cast always changed.

so when i planned to return to DC for this summer, i was ready for there to be new hook ups, different players, and some unnecessary drama. and hopefully at least one topless scene in some random hot tub.

but it turns out that this isn't even the same fucking tv show.

i'm on a whole other spinoff series. well call me addison montgomery from grey's anatomy.

two years ago (crap, it's been two years?), i took the comforts of my favorite city, a penthouse apartment, a solid job, some good friends, and a boyfriend and exchanged them for a perverted sense of mediocrity, a $300.000 debt, and social relationships that are vaguely based on what color professor mann's suspenders were and how obnoxious we could possibly be to marta the marketing teacher (since fired).

no matter what choices we make in life, it gets messy. removed from all that i knew, the looming question of what if was relatively easily silenced by distance. and i guess that's why being back in this city has left me with sleepless nights wondering -- in addition to whether there's any health benefit to swallowing -- what if.

what if i never left?
what if i never moved here?
what if i had followed my ex-boyfriend to law school the way it was assumed i should?
what if i were a fire-breathing dragon? (dude, how cool would *that* be?)

whatif.whatif.whatif.

what if for the first time in almost two years, i was going to see the ex-boyfriend?

there is something anxiety-producing about sitting down with someone who was once such a fundamental part of my identity that it was impossible to exist outside him and who then disappeared from my life almost instantly.

because of the decision i made to go to harvard, i suspect.

on good days, i remember that growing up means making tough decisions and living with the consequences. we have to see for ourselves. we have to learn our own lessons. we have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. we can spend our lives drawing lines. or we can choose to live our lives testing boundaries.

still. a lot of the time, despite the fact that i like to think that i am humane, conscientious, civilized, and thoughtful, when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear i am no better than a psycho ex-girlfriend an animal. and in light of all that i struggle with, i wonder what the hell is holding me together.

it's like one day i'll realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than i once dreamed. the castle may not be that particular penthouse apartment. and the solid job may be just a transition into a dream career. and the friends who are actually still friends call at 2am to say your gmail statuses are unacceptably depressing.

and maybe happily ever after is less important than being happy -- or at least okay -- right now.

there may not be a slew of steamy doctors on my spinoff reality series. but ratings are better when there's good cleavage anyway.