Check mate.

Someone told me recently that "if everyone in Gainesville were chess pieces, you would be one of two queens." He doesn't know me very well but apparently I made some sort of impression. He went on to write that "The queen is the most important part of any strategy in a game and the best one in town is going to the worst weather in the country with the highest crime rate and bad smog and costly cigarettes but she can't be wrong in doing so because the best plans revolve around the queen." He was talking about my recent decision to up and move to Chicago and while I am both flattered and horrified by his honesty (misplaced, at best) his metaphor is strangely poignant. I cannot help but agree that life can resemble a chess board and the people in our lives, our decisions, our mistakes play out in a strategic match, albeit far bloodier than any fictitious war. I don't like to think of the people I love as "pawns" nor do I see a queen when I face the mirror, but I must admit that there is a fair bit of strategy involved in the business of making plans. I want to get away, starting comfortably fresh in a city that doesn't have a fucking clue about my mistakes. And maybe one day, the person I want to view me as some sort of queen will.