envy

I’ve habitually, if unconsciously, compared myself to other white women who, in far greater numbers than women of color, are granted competitor status in America’s Olympics of life.

I’ve been that single mom perusing my friend’s pages on social media as their catalog-like family portraits, holiday photos, and tales of family bliss fill my newsfeed. I, too, have experienced “perfect family envy.”

How much energy does it take to be jealous? Hint: Way too much.

From a young age, people (especially women) are constantly taught that we’re in competition with one another. Whether it’s our grades, our social status, our economic status, or those creepy beauty pageants for 6 year olds, we’re immediately thrust into a world where we’re taught to view everyone as adversarial to a certain degree.

One person’s successful venture or exalting victory — regardless of what it is — does not take away the possibility of anyway else’s. This world is vast, and there is plenty of room for everyone’s love and success stories (if they so desire them).

Dunham is such an unabashedly self loving/loathing spectacular specimen, I can't help but want to be her. And destroy her.