My Life in German

Since I moved to the German-speaking part of Switzerland, I've noticed how similar my life here is to the US, and how despite living in a different country, I feel like I'm repeating my past. It is like I am trapped in a German deja vu time warp.

Although I work in private equity/venture capital/active investing at Pala, I find my current job to be a lot like my old investment banking job at Wachovia. I walked into my office today, early. Only 2 people were around. I wanted to get caught up on the industry and do some research before everyone got in. But then I heard one of the Associates on the phone speaking to another Associate. And I could have SWORN those were the voices of Jeff and Michael at Wachovia. They sounded almost alike, the inflection, everything.

And when one of the Vice Presidents, a big burly guy with a blood pressure monitor, comes to talk to me about a model, I could have sworn he looked and acted just like Aaron at Wachovia. They both had a cool, manly demeanor and hid so much stress inside that they ended up having the same problem. It was freaky. And today, we had to get a report out to one of the Boards, and my other Vice President asked me to get some figures done and format the thing. But I had to do it in 20 minutes. It was a rush job. And he was standing behind me while I did all the excel shorthands as quickly as possible. It was deja vu to the extreme, imagining my VP Chris at Wachovia behind me telling me to format this, change that. I thought my investment banking analyst days were over, but it turns out I am doing the exact same thing. Why?

Although my job is similar, I am not. I noticed a big change in the way I behave at Pala than at Wachovia. At Wachovia, my papers were scattered all over my desk and project info was spread everywhere. At Pala, every project has a neat folder and a specific corner of my desk, not to mention a specific folder on the harddrive. At Wachovia, I snuck in late, and tried to leave early (though, "early" was 10PM and "late" was 830AM). At Pala, I arrive early to research and learn about the companies while no one is around, and am one of the last to leave. At Wachovia, I struggled just trying to stay above water every day. At Pala, I try to reflect and think about what I am doing, why I am doing it, how to improve it, and how it all links together. I like it. At Wachovia, I wore flowy skirts and bold striped shirts. At Pala, I am more subdued with light button downs and muted pinstripes. Although there were times I loved investment banking, most of the time the analyst life was not that good. I guess the difference is that now I actually get to do the finance that I like, but the life is a lot better, and hence I enjoy my job.

As for love, I am finding myself in a lot of the same situations abroad as I was in the US. Although most of the time the people you meet are not suited for you, or you are not suited for them, every once in a long while you meet someone who you just "fit" with. I met one of those people. And I've found that I am in the same situation I had been before: should I reveal my feelings and say "This is too good to just walk away from, let's give it a try?" Or do I never reveal how I feel and trust that if it was meant to be, it will all work out naturally?

I've certainly had this feeling before. But it's like you are wading through a sea of yellow flowers and all of a sudden you run into one bright red. It pops out at you. You know it's just what you want. But you also know that you've seen red flowers before, yet, they are very few and far between. Getting back to people, the question is, do you let this opportunity go or do you put down your pride and just say "Love conquers all!"

Although I am in the same situation as I've been in before, I'm not the same person. Before I would have called him up, or written him a letter explaining basically, "we had such a great time together, don't you want to see where it goes?" Sadly, it always ruined everything. This time, despite how much I still want to tell him, I won't. I'll let it run its course. Maybe in the future we'll see each other again, maybe never. I'll just have to live with that. If he really saw it the same way, he would have spoken up about it, or maybe we'd be talking more. I just can't force it. I have to let it be.

But I can't help but wonder why history repeats itself. Why my life turned out to be so similar to my past. Why you encounter the same types of people. Why the story is always the same. I guess the main difference in it all is how you change as a person, even if everything else stays the same.