Ego over-easy, hold the bacon.

Yeah.  So.  Here I am, back in Arizona, and it’s nearly the end of 2011.  Most daring and adventurous year of my life, fo’ shizzle.  (Don’t worry, I can talk that way now.  I lived in New York.)

It’s been four months now since I returned to the wild west, but it seems like years since I last walked the streets of Manhattan at night, feeling the subways roar underneath my feet, or hanging around Union Square and watching the pre-Occupy youth of America dance merrily up and down the concrete steps, or expanding my cultural literacy by visiting important historical monuments; such as the subway grate that blew up Marilyn Monroe’s skirt...

But now that I’m back, my energy level has plummeted.  I need my walking city back.  Lexington Avenue became my treadmill, and without it, well, I am beginning to look (and feel) like a typical westerner again.  But the one thing I noticed in particular, the very night I returned to Flagstaff, was the marked stillness in the air around here.   I didn’t realize how the air constantly swirls about in New York City, day and night.  You get used to it swirling around you, rising and falling, passing through your body, brain, and soul – like throngs of overcharged neutrinos or something – whispering in your ear, screaming around your heart, motivating you to Get Up, Get Out There, and Achieve!  (Spot on, Elizabeth Gilbert.  Spot on.)  And there I was, suddenly finding myself back in my little mountain town, sitting inside my little forest home, listening to the quiet, feeling the still, and really, truly understanding something that I’d sort of known all along:  THIS SUCKS.

And that was just the beginning.  

You see, just after I'd returned from my very last meal on the very last day of my very last walk around the Upper East Side, I was getting ready to turn in my key and haul my suitcases down to the street and hail my very last cab to take me to La Guardia for the very last time, when I decided to check my email.  The Upright Citizens Brigade finally wanted to interview me early next week for that internship I so coveted.  Fantastic! – I thought.  I quickly fired back an email saying thank you for contacting me and I would be happy to schedule the interview via Skype or phone, thinking nothing of the possibility that this might not fly.  (Actually, it never occurred to me that it might not fly; it seemed so simple to me.  Modern technology, baby!  Yeaaah!) 

I told Gary about it and he tried to tell me that it’s okay if I decided I wanted to stay in NYC for the next three months to do the internship, but I was already completely immersed in the mindset of heading home to see him and my lovely dog and my sweet soft kitty and my mom and my friends, and my plane ticket was burning up in my hand, and I had just spent the last couple of weeks working so hard at mentally preparing myself to leave Manhattan by that point.  So I sent my reply, got on the plane, and flew home, thinking I’d spend a week or two with Gary, get the internship, figure out housing, and fly back for a few more months.  Yup – as we say in Arizona, No Problemo! 

The next day, I received a reply from UCB.  They didn’t want to interview me via Skype and there were plenty of other qualified candidates who had no problem coming in for a one-on-one, and please apply for next semester, they said, because I had a “stellar resume”.  Well…. crap. 

That was when I realized: as a result of living in Manhattan and doing two internships simultaneously and feeling right jiggy with myself for being so brave and adventurous and daring, my ego had somehow gotten blown WAY out of proportion to the actual size of my head.  What was I thinking, that they’d be so enthralled with my resume and electronic correspondence that meeting me in person would no longer be necessary before deciding I was just perfect for the job?  That I somehow stood out from ALL the other applicants and would be oh-so-worthy of them going out of their way to accommodate ME and my unconventional meeting request?

I guess when you spend a significant amount of time (and money) working for free, it tends to go to your head.  You start to expect, and feel entitled, and maybe even border on begrudge.  And then you get the rude awakening.  You’re lucky to even catch someone’s attention, much less convince them to allow you lend your time and talents for nothing in return, other than a possible reference to something that does pay, and/or the experience with which you can pad your resume.  And in this economy, you really ARE lucky to get someone to pay attention to you, especially if it might lead to knowing someone who knows someone who knows someone’s cousin who works at NBC, or Comedy Central, or HBO, or some really cool company in Seattle – or wherever you’d like to end up. 

Part of a church on the UES.   Yeah.  I know.

So I spent the next few months trying to figure out what to do.  Should I apply for the next semester as they suggested, and go back to NYC and continue to dangerously deplete our savings while taking another enormous chance on an internship that might or might not lead to something better?  Or should I just stay safe and cold in Flagstaff and keep sending my resume off into the ether, applying for jobs that I never hear back on and that always seem way out of my league because of the simple fact that I don’t know anyone who works for that company, who can put in a good word for me and help my electronic application rise to the virtual top of the virtual stack? 

And then, some time in late October, out of the blue, I got a call to do some temporary freelance video production work for the local corporate scene at W. L. Gore.  SCORE!!!

So that’s what I’m doing now.  This should last at least through the end of March, possibly even April, and it’s actual paid work in an actual professional environment and I can actually call myself a professional video producer.  Or, um… writer/producer.  Or… media developer?  I still don’t really know what to consider myself (other than lucky as hell, that is).

This is where they trap your spirit.

So.  Yeah.  Here I am.  The year is ending.  Another year is beginning.  I have an Honor’s degree in Electronic Media and Film, and a part-time job doing real-live production work for a real-live company that gives me a real-live paycheck.  Not too shabby.  I miss New York City and all its swirling airs and trademark sounds – of subways screeching and people trampling and taxi drivers constantly honking at no one (and everyone), and DAMMIT how upset was I that I just missed the Occupy movement (OH yes – that would have been one doozy of a documentary under my belt, had I been there to immerse myself in the crowd day and night with camera in hand), but I was there with them in spirit.  I think part of my spirit is still back there, probably caught up in those air-swirlies particularly around the East Village and Tribeca, because ever since I left, I feel a little less awake, a LOT less energetic, and a hella lot less full of myself.  The ego has been reeled in, given a harsh talking to, and put in time out, indefinitely. 

So along with the New Year, I need to also ring in – and reel in – the rest of whatever I left there in spirit, because I’m going to need that back.  And maybe I’ll make it back there somehow, or maybe I’ll end up in the Pacific Northwest.  Or San Francisco.  Who knows?  But my New Life in New York, temporary as it was, has given me a different perspective, a transformed sense of humility, and a renewed self-confidence that has been reconstructed with less ego and more appreciation. 

Do something scary, risky, and gutsy with your life every now and then.  I highly recommend it.