not another goodbye to all that-ass essay

so sorry may delete later

a comedy in three parts

I know I literally just said two weeks ago that I would no longer be writing any melancholic ass “carrie-shut-up” pieces on bed crumbs, especially none about the downside of building your life around one singular goal (working at a global corporate media company lmao) but unfortunately the inside of my brain is that “girl don’t do it, it’s not worth it”/ “i’m not gonna do it girl, i’m just thinking about it”….. “i did it” tiktok. I have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS and if I don’t write them I will combust because I don’t have therapy until Wednesday and I’m sure she is sick of me processing a complicated attachment to the longest relationship (my employment in corporate media—humiliating!) of my adult life. So!

When I first created a tumblr account as a college freshman in the winter of 2010, I dubbed it carriewintour, a username that I had not thought to change until far too many years later, well into my tenure working at the company its namesake, for all intents and purposes, ran. This is a piece of my lore that I’ve been reluctant to acknowledge in recent years; when the few who remember that period of my life make reference to it, I join them in laughing it off. It was the act of someone so embarrassingly young and naive and idealistic. The thing is, that someone was me. 

I had spent years idolizing a woman others had vilified but I had chosen to see instead as a woman who was just decisive and opinionated (not unlike myself) and didn’t mince words when sharing her thoughts (unlike myself, who was either too blunt and overthought every reaction after or too worried about others’ opinions of me to be firm enough). I wanted to be steely like her. I wanted to care less about what other people thought about me as long as I knew I was right. Or rather, I wanted to have the power that made it possible to not care what other people thought about me. If I worked hard enough, and made myself good enough, I thought, I could maybe get it. Of course, I desperately wanted to be in her orbit someday. More than ten years later, on my 30th birthday, I found myself sitting in an early morning Zoom meeting staring at a small group of squares, hers among them. I thought to myself: 18-year-old me would be losing it over this. Our paths had, of course, crossed over the years—mostly in the form of unexpected shared elevator rides during which I held my breath, terrified and silently regretting whatever outfit I was wearing and questioning if there was any truth to the rumor that you were to let her take the elevator alone—but now I was actually given the opportunity to speak to her, to prove that I belonged there, as if the past several years of employment meant nothing. She was in a good mood that morning, jovial and surprisingly funny. But 30 year old me could mostly think: “I requested to have today off, and here I am, of course, working. Man, fuck this.” I could not bring myself to care as much as I thought I was supposed to about the perceived privilege.

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Many days, when it felt like I couldn’t catch a break or climb to the next level, like no one would listen to me, let alone let me fulfill my potential, like I had been put down or passed over yet again, I’d go on a long walk listening to Aimee Mann’s Bachelor No. 2 on repeat. I’d walk for miles playing on repeat her songs of defiance in the face of a major label that had nothing but insecurity-inducing criticism for her work. “Most people don’t know this,” I’d jokingly text a work friend while “How Am I Different?” or “Nothing is Good Enough” blasted in my airpods, “but Bachelor No. 2 is actually a concept album about working in corporate media.”

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When I first walked into One World Trade Center, I was 24, and it was October, and I arrived in a dark grey silk tunic and cropped black pants and a faux leather jacket that seemed very chic in my West Harlem bedroom but seemed less chic—cheap, even—the moment I stepped off the subway, and the air smelled of pool water and changing leaves, and I knew in that eager and earnest moment that my life was about to change. 

Whenever I remember that time in my life, I think most about the hustle and yearning and boundless ambition I had to do, to achieve, to make it, and all the bitter tears of frustration I cried over feeling like success was always just out of reach, and that I was always going to be stuck banging on doors that would never open for me. My sights had been set on becoming a successful writer since I was in middle school, and, ideally, at one company in particular. When I finally got my foot in the door—after a semester-long internship (that I was told would be paid but in the end was not) there my senior year, followed by two years spent at a small marketing firm while I filed countless ignored job applications to any and every position for which I was even remotely qualified—I still felt like I had something to prove. I paid no attention to the fact that I was going to be in a video and social media position, not a writing one; a break is a break, I thought, and better to make myself a Swiss Army Knife who could be useful in a variety of positions in a changing media landscape than to pigeonhole myself in one. I paid no attention to the coincidence that I had already been let down by the company once before. I paid no attention to the check for my portion of a settlement from a class action lawsuit against the company for unpaid internships which arrived on my first day of full time employment, an ominous sign to anyone else but not, at the time, to me. I only paid attention to the fact that my foot had finally kicked hard enough to get myself inside, and I was not going to leave of my own volition any time soon. 

Today, I walked through One World Trade Center again, a much different girl. Far more jade and hardened, for starters, though I try not to be, but certainly more sure of myself. After a full year of a drawn out back and forth and complications and union negotiations (for which I will never stop being thankful), my time at my dream job was officially over. I could only outrun reorgs and layoffs for so long. And as I walked through the sterile halls to turn in my laptop, the paperwork finally having been signed, the last day completed, this one last act finally making it real, finally setting me free, I thought I’d feel lighter. I had no more business, or willingness to have business, at a place that made me feel badly about myself more often than good. I had no desire to block off fifteen minute breaks in my calendar to go cry in the bathroom ever again. I had a book out. I had other projects in the works. An exciting new chapter of my life, one I had longed for all those years ago, was beginning, and in order to fully step forward into it, I had to close out the last one.

But when I looked down at my building ID—so faded and worn that, in the photo of myself taken that October day in 2015, my eyes are practically rubbed off, along with the back half of my last name—I suddenly felt a wave of bittersweet sadness. It felt as if saying goodbye to C*ndé meant saying goodbye to that girl. That sweet, stupid, exhausting 24 year old girl who had such big dreams and would find herself crushed over and over again at the place she thought would fulfill them all. That version of myself had all these desires—to be a managing editor of a publication, or editor in chief, or a director of social media or video—and though I am not that person who wants those things anymore, a version of myself still does, kind of, or at least knows a version of myself wanted them badly once. To hand in my laptop and walk out those doors for the final time meant I had to let go of that sister life I could have lived, no matter how happy and content I was with the life I was currently living, and admit defeat.

that little baby…….lol. lmao, even

Maren Morris has a pair of songs about walking away from her increasingly contentious relationship with the country music establishment. “I hung along longer than anyone should,” she sings on “The Tree,” a song that is equal parts righteously angry and optimistically liberating. “You’ve broken my heart more than anyone could. Trying to stop me won’t do you no good. I’ve already planted the seeds.” Over the past year, the song became a much-needed rallying cry, even if only privately.

You can’t love an industry any more than you can love a company; it’s an invitation to your own inevitable heartbreak. But it’s hard not to when you grow up with such a passionate love for what that industry or company represents, when you know how good it used to be and how good it still could be, if only others cared as much as you to fix it. You can be proud of and celebrate what you managed to achieve doing something you loved while simultaneously acknowledging that it was not always kind to or good for you. You can say fuck you and slam the book shut, but that doesn’t mean you won’t—or can’t—grieve that ending, too. “I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship to country music. I still find myself weirdly wanting to protect it. But it’s not a family member,” Morris said in an interview about the track. “That’s the fucked up part, is that I’m talking about it as a person, but it’s not.” 

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I had my dream job on paper, but the thing about dream jobs is that often, in practice, they’re just jobs. Like many employed folks these days, I often took on increasing amounts—and changing types—of work while my title and pay stayed the same. I can’t say I entirely regret this; I learned a lot, and I opened myself up to new skills and, on a few occasions, had the privilege to do some truly extraordinary things. What I do regret is this: For years, I continued to drink the intoxicating Kool Aid of praise that I was a “rising star” who would “do great, big things” and “run this place someday,” an exceptionally reliable hard, smart worker who could take anything tossed her way. I could turn around record traffic and engagement growth and seamlessly onboard new staff members—all on top of my own work—when they wanted me to swing into interim roles. I could be placed in exclusive mentorship programs and senior leadership advisory committees and various task forces. I could get tapped at the last minute to produce a video with the former president, even. But it was never enough. I sat back and watched rich white boys and young women with internal connections, both with little experience and few qualifications, blaze past me with ease. I said nothing when ideas I had once presented were pitched in other meetings by other people as if they were their own. I never let myself question how I could be a rising star if I never really went anywhere until it was too late. I thought not of systemic flaws, only of my own.

Here’s the shameful, embarrassing secret: I have cried more tears over C*ndé N*st than I have over any boy, over any lost friend, over any slight or injury. I wanted to be here more than anything in the world, and when I finally arrived, I was going to do anything I could to not only stay, but soar. I sacrificed vacations, birthdays, holidays, family events. I stayed late and ate protein bars at my desk at lunchtime and replied to emails when I woke at 5 a.m., and I’m never going to get that time back. I thought of myself as married to C*ndé N*st, and I was going to do anything to make the relationship work. You can’t fault me entirely for this; it was the era of the girlboss, and I had, after all, grown up watching reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and wanting nothing more than to be Mary Richards: A small town girl in the big city, a career woman who loved her work and her colleagues enough to build a life around them. And here I finally was. It took me years to realize: We were never married. Work is not a relationship. It’s just work. C*ndé N*st was the boyfriend I kept thinking would pop the question. He liked me, sure, but no matter how hard I loved him, he would never love me back. And any time I thought about leaving, he tried to hold onto me a little tighter. And I stayed: it was better, I thought, to be miserable somewhere special than happy somewhere ordinary.

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I know I stayed too long at the fair, but in my defense, I really did love the fair. All these years later, that remains true. And so does the fact that I am still, in some ways, that 24 year old girl, still full of ambition and so many yet to be realized dreams, just a bit more cautious about them. The biggest difference is that now, despite many options and works-in-progress fanned out in front of me to choose from, I don’t have a firm plan for what comes next. The thought of walking away from something without a clear step-by-step guide for arriving at the next point would have terrified her, and, to be fair, it scares me a bit, too—I’ve had a job and a plan since I was 14 years old. But I do know this: I have had enough girlbossing for this lifetime, and I’d like to say goodbye to all that. 

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okay that's it that's the end thanks sorry love u bye