Dear Kelley,
I hated you the very moment I first laid eyes on you when I was a freshman in college. Your perfectly long, straight blond hair, your body that always made me feel like a little girl, and the way you walked around in those spandex shorts and tank top, like you owned the campus or something. You were at least a foot taller than me even when I wore 4-inch heels. Cheerleader and aerobics instructor. Seriously? So while we never once spoke, I was convinced that you had a brain the size of a pea. And I just knew you had to have one of those fake, girly superficial laughs solely to benefit and attract the men around you. Someone so drop-dead gorgeous couldn't possibly have a clue about anything that mattered like social justice issues or feminism. The only reason my boyfriend was ever into you, because back then he wasn't mature enough to appreciate someone of substance, that is until he met the 18-year old me.
So you can imagine how completely and utterly surprised I was when I found myself in a room with you 20 years later at an event back at our old college. I hadn't thought about you in years, but I remember so vividly the many nights I spent overcome with jealousy about you. The boyfriend was long gone, and all of a sudden I found myself walking over to introduce myself to the woman who unknowingly tortured me my entire college career.
And by golly, I liked you.
No, I mean like I would actually want to hang out with someone like you. So turns out you can look like you just walked off the cover of a magazine AND have a brain a little larger than a pea. Well, a lot larger actually. And you were funny - and not even the cheesy Bill Cosby kind of funny, but the witty, sarcastic, intelligent John Stewart funny. And you had the deepest belly laugh ever. But oh no, it didn't stop there. You were also an attorney, a feminist, and a progressive political beast. Turns out our ex had really, really good taste in women.
I can't believe that I wasted 20 years being jealous of a woman I apparently knew nothing about. We have so much in common that we could have been friends for the last two decades if it weren't for the competition I manufactured in my head. I wonder how many other women I've written off and kept at bay over the course of my lifetime due to my own insecurities. Women that could have turned out to be great support to me, and women that I could have supported. So it is with great enthusiasm that I look forward to our lunch date next week when I'm in town. Because clearly we share a heck of a lot more than an ex-boyfriend.
Sincerely,
The girl who no longer judges cheerleaders and aerobics instructors.
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