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Way back when, I started my career in non-profit development as a bright-eyed 23-year-old.  It was the single most fulfilling job I’ve had to date. I worked long and hard and couldn’t wait for Mondays. Our event season ran from May to October and we spent 10-24 hours a day together during that time.  Needless to say, we were tight.

But making it on $21,191 a year is almost impossible and slowly one by one we moved on.  As many of us went corporate as moved onto to other non-profits.  While I averaged about 2.5 years per job, Jelly rooted into a non-profit, worked her way up to a vice president position. Just this past fall she took a position as an executive director.

She was born to lead and has all of the characteristics necessary to not only run an organization but to leave it better than she found it.

My first reaction was pride. I’m proud of her. But then I quickly turned it back on myself. Should I have been an ED by now? Am I as successful as I should be?

I’ve always liked being an individual contributor better.  I even thought dealing with an intern this past fall was the woooorst.  And the work an executive director does is mostly loathsome. There’s no way I want that job.

After spending too much time wondering if I was failing myself, I stopped to wonder why I was comparing myself to Jelly.  We were never on the same track in life, why on earth would I measure my success against her career path?

Baz Luhrmann said, “The race is long, but in the end, it’s only with yourself.”  True that.

JJG.  Even after all of this time, that name makes me dizzy.

It was brief, complicated, and nearly a decade ago.  But it happened during the crescendo of my 20’s and was, afterwards, a parachute as I barreled downward. He was the only good thing during the worst part of my life.

We never really knew each other. But carnally, we were…it was…we…it was magnetic.  Fervid.  Because of him that I understood the power of that kind of union.

It started with wine on a late-summer evening in the secret garden dubbed ‘the most romantic place’ in the city which clearly was, but had not been identified as, a date and led to both the freedom and terror of not being in control.  It ended a few months later with a kiss on the forehead.

It started again with enigmatic jealousy and ended with inadvertent spite.

And yet again with a grand gesture and ended with an email.

What began with virile attraction, perhaps in a way, never really ended.

While he is married now and I am quite fulfilled, it is with great intention that I avoid him even in this vast metropolis as I don’t dare play with Kryptonite.

With a grimace, I stepped on the (unofficial) scale for the first time since weighing in at 146 lbs on September 5. While there were grander hopes than 141 lbs, I’m happy to see progress in the right direction.  An annual physical on Friday will determine the official progress.

Working out might help – right now my YMCA membership might as well be considered a charitable donation. I have been interested in the much costlier CrossFit, but will wait on that until the New Year’s Resolution crowd has fallen back into their bad habits.

Clean in ’13 has been a beneficial experience. I’ve found that the foods I crave all week are not very fulfilling when consumed on the weekend.  I’ve even found myself having trouble eating poorly on Friday…but by Saturday, that hesitation is long gone.  I also eat a lot less.  And those are all wins.

…one is silver and the others gold. As the Girl Scouts song goes.

For a shoddy memory, mine never ceases to amaze when it comes to the most random of details.  A snippet of a song from more than twenty years ago I recall, yet what I had for breakfast yesterday eludes me…or if breakfast was even consumed. Ugh.

While I’ve fallen prey to a few dastards in the first 2.5 decades of life, I have successfully avoided and rid my circle of toxic people.  Yet, one remains. ‘We’ is that friend for which an explanation is always necessary prior to introduction. As in, “She’s abrasive and snooty and pretentious when first meet her, but she’s a dear once you get to know her.”

(‘We’ is actually the nickname we use for her because she sheds her personal identity when in a relationship.)

Of course her snoot and pretension surface from deeply rooted insecurities, but I have always been able to see past her ‘less flattering’ side for her better qualities.

That was until my wedding.  One month before the wedding, we were having lunch and I told her that TB would no longer be drawing a salary from his start-up company beginning about the time we were married.  I told her how the idea of being financially tethered to someone who would now be financially dependent on me was scary.  I was looking for a friend in that moment to tell me that everything was going to be fine.

Instead, she said to me: “Matt and I don’t lend people money.”

I was befuddled and humiliated.  I wasn’t asking for money, I was asking for support. Our friendship had started to unravel long before that comment, but it fast-forwarded it for me.

The idea of shedding a friendship that’s longevity is approaching two decades is kind of unimaginable.  While I retained zero friends from high school, I also had no idea who I was at 18-years-old. Today, while continual evolution is guaranteed, I have a pretty good idea who I am. I know who to keep and who to drop.

Huh. Come to think of it…I met We when I was 18.  Perhaps that song should actually be, ‘Make new friends, but keep only the gold.’