Music Monday from a Jersey Girl: Southside Johnny Sings "Coming Back"

I haven't really written anything in months, too busy to slow down and sort it all out. Sometimes I think it may be best not to think too much, as if going too far below the surface might cause me to find something that's better left in a locked box. The winter months were dark, but the cherry blossoms and warm weather, combined with "soaring consumer confidence" in April and what feels like an economy that is slowly turning around, have me feeling the same hope that comes with the start of every summer at the beach.

After ten years on our own, Rex and I have landed on our feet, joining our small independent mergers & acquisitions practice with another investment bank run by a former colleague from The Firm and his two partners. I've just been busier professionally than I have in many years, and I hope the level of activity will correspond with productivity. As one of the partners at The Firm once cautioned, "Do not confuse motion with progress." Anyway, I have high hopes and great expectations that we've found the right home for our next ten year run.

As much as I have needed to focus on my "real work" and my family for the past three months, I feel the need to turn back to writing/blogging now as a part of my identity, who I am. While being a wife and a mother may be enough for other women (and please do not doubt that I respect that choice), I have always needed my high-powered investment banking career as an important part of my identity and self-esteem. For the ten years when it was just Rex and me and our nine-year-colleague, Brent, I felt terrific about myself. There were moments of fear and doubt, particularly around September 11th and when our business struggled, but it was all a part of me.

Now, as a part of someone else's firm, while I am truly grateful to have the opportunity to continue my career on Wall Street, I am definitely not as important, so I think about ways to rebuild my self-esteem... a side of me who not only does my time but excels in my career, but another side who finds strength (and fifteen minutes of fame?) in writing and blogging.

This week's Music Monday is a pure Jersey Girl song by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Southside's album, Better Days, came out in 1991, when I was going through a lot of changes, but 18 years later, it is still just as much a part of me. Check out the lyrics to "Coming Back" as my promise to myself and to all of you to be back in the blogosphere in earnest this summer.




Sing along with Roxy:

I still remember, baby
Those wild, desperate times
Making love in crazy places
While the town around us died

I played on broken stages
I watched the lonely cry
You danced in iron cages
For the boys with hungry eyes
All those wasted lives

Little by little, baby, we were going down
I swore I'd come back for you
Come back and buy this town

I'm coming back
Back for what's mine
I ain't gonna let nobody stop me this time
No more running baby, I paid for my crime
I'm coming back, baby
Back for what's mine

You were standing at the station
That rainy night I left
You looked so fine, baby
I couldn't catch my breath

Once I started running
I never asked the cost
Too many years and miles
To find out what I'd lost
Some things can't be bought

Everybody's colder now
lt's everywhere I go
I'm getting tired of living
In a world that's got no soul

I'm coming back
Back for what's mine
I ain't gonna let nobody stop me this time
No more running, baby, I paid for my crime
I'm coming back, baby
Back for what's mine

I don't want to confuse you
If you found something else
But I don't want to lose you
Just when I found myself

Everybody's colder now
lt's everywhere I go
I just don't want to live
In a world that's got no soul

I'm coming back
Back for what's mine
I ain't gonna let nobody stop me this time
No more running, baby, I paid for my crime
I'm coming back, baby
Back for what's mine

I'm coming, baby
I'm coming, baby
I'm coming, baby
I'm coming, baby

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