The arc of a friendship

Jealousy is (probably) a bigger bitch than that other girl

Among the lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life is the total pointlessness and destructiveness of envying someone else. Not that I’ve completely mastered this one. I momentarily flunk the test every time I see a woman with thin ankles and nice skin.

But here’s what I know: If that girl had thick ankles and bad skin, it would not improve my own appearance at all. And her thin ankles and flawless skin don’t even make mine look any worse. I mean, I guess if we all lived on a tiny island, and she and I were the only two women, then her beauty might risk my romantic prospects, assuming any of the men on the island were worth attracting (another life lesson I’ve learned over time is that very few men are worth attracting, certainly not at the expense of female friendship).

Also, generally speaking, if you are living completely isolated on an island with only a handful of people, you have bigger problems than your ankles I’m guessing. In fact, the fat on my cankles might even help me outlast that skinny-ankled weakling.

Anyway, I digress. Life is not a zero sum game. Another person being awesome almost never precludes you being awesome. Even in cases of direct competition for awards or trophies or medals, there’s a better chance you’ll benefit from someone else’s awesomeness than be denied anything. Just ask Simone Biles’s teammates. And besides, very few of us will ever be “the best,” and for very few us does being “the best" translate into any meaningful difference in the quality of our lives.

But when I was 30 and met my new colleague Cece, I hadn’t yet learned this lesson.

Cece was drop-dead gorgeous, one of the most beautiful women I have ever known in real life, with long, thick dark hair, naturally golden, glowing skin, a radiant, perfect smile, and, yes, thin ankles. Thin everything. She had the lithe body and graceful bearing of a yoga teacher, because that was her actual side gig (of course it was). She was also intelligent, articulate, charismatic, ambitious, the whole enchilada. When Cece walked into a room, it was like a force field opened. You could not ignore Cece. She dazzled. In the words of one of my friends, she was “hot and awesome.”

And she did know it, because she was not an idiot, and because she grew up with parents who adored her and plenty of friends and probably had never had a single experience that made her feel diminished in any way. I will not presume to speculate on what impact that might have had on her empathy for others. All I can tell you is that, at the time, I resented that she didn’t attempt to diminish herself on behalf of the rest of us. She was unapologetically spectacular. Almost 20 years later, I don’t think she ever owed me, or anyone else, an apology.

That’s not to say she never made mistakes in how she related to others, but that’s for her own reflection. Whatever she did or did not do, the truth is, I was jealous of her, pure and simple. And my jealousy clouded my view of her. And prevented me from really seeing her. And really loving her.

***

I was at the beach with my family when I got a call from one of our colleagues. “Something terrible has happened. Cece’s partner has been killed,” she said.

My heart sank. However complicated my feelings about Cece were, this was a straightforward tragedy that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. I had met Alan a few times, and he was as “hot and awesome” as she was, and quite simply a lovely person who loved her well. And when a person is loved well, it spills out into the world. Alan’s entry into her life had smoothed some of her edges, and she had an additional ease and lightness about her. And now he was suddenly gone.

I reached out to Cece at first out of sympathy and obligation, bringing over groceries and going to dinner with her. It was more time than I had spent with her in several years, if not ever. And I saw a side of her I had never seen. She was still resilient and unbowed, hot and awesome, but now she was also vulnerable and heartbroken and unlucky. The golden path of her life had taken a turn into some mud.

I couldn’t relate to being drop-dead gorgeous. I couldn’t relate to turning every head in a room. I couldn’t relate to being poised and articulate and intelligent in every situation. I couldn’t relate to having a constant, abundant supply of confidence. I couldn’t relate to being dazzling.

But I could relate to grief. I could relate to feeling upended. I could relate to being thrown a loop and feeling battered and bruised and losing and being lost.

Her vulnerability invited me in, not to be dazzled, but to be loved.

I responded with my own vulnerability. I told her about feeling ugly and unloved and unworthy and rejected and not-up-to-the-task and all the things she maybe has never felt but I told her anyway.

I stopped trying to compete with her, and I gave her all the ammunition she would ever need to defeat me, if that was ever her intention.

It was never her intention.

****

Now I am just one of many people who adore Cece, who at age 50, is still dazzling and hot and awesome in ways that are objectively unfair to other women her age. But I am happy for her. I am thrilled for her. And we are real friends who support each other and cheer each other on and hope for the best. Many others—the more secure ones, the ones who just let her be hot and awesome from the get-go and never worried about it—have had had a head start on me. But I’ve been showered with her blessings for years now. Among them, an entire group of hot and awesome women who inspire me and teach me and connect me.

I am the Laurie Hernandez or Jordan Chiles to her Simone Biles. And that’s OK, she can be the Golden Girl. She’s helped put plenty of medals around my neck, and she’s celebrated every single one of them.

Looking back on almost 20 years since I met Cece, I can see we’ve both grown. We are both more capable of genuine love now than we were then.

I have regrets about the past. But I also know that few relationships I’ve had have taught me more about what love is and what it isn’t. How we get in our own way and cheat ourselves of it. How the guards we put up actually make us weaker. How the camouflage we wear hides nothing.

Cece has taught me that when someone is dazzling, it’s best to put on your sunglasses and just bask in the light.