The Frenemy

Via

From the first moment I saw her, I didn’t like her. Mainly because she was everything I wasn’t. Confident. Brash. Impulsive. Petite. Her tiny stature and birdlike limbs made my plodding and gangly figure look like a giant next to a delicate flower.

In class, she would sit with her arms and legs crossed, leaned back in her desk, chin tilted defiantly. Professor nor student would dare disturb her, and if she spoke, everyone listened.

What made it all worse was how smart she was. Sharp and witty, nothing got past her. When she deigned to speak to the rest of us, her voice carried the short abrasiveness of a New York accent and seemed to demand that you pay attention and believe every word she said.

Nope, I didn’t like her one bit…until she started paying me a little attention. Typical. As a card-carrying People Pleaser, I craved the attention of those who were popular, important. And she was important…at least in my eyes.

She came into my life like a furious, brunette tornado, turning everything upside down in her wake and changing me forever.

 I don’t know why she would have liked me. I still can’t say that I understand it. I was shy, withdrawn, understated. Everything she wasn’t. Looking back now, I suppose it’s because every girl like her needs a girl like me. I was her sidekick, her devotee, her number one fan. I fed her confidence, and strangely enough, she fed mine.

We found common interests. Writing, theatre, cute English professors. We started taking the same classes, going to lunch together. It didn’t take long for us to become friends.

Our friendship was a whirlwind of new experiences for me. Parties, dates, bars. Long conversations that would wind into the night about her latest conquests. Men were as attracted by her as I was. She was elusive, an enigma that they all wanted.

I soon learned that she wasn’t as perfect as she seemed. Without fail, she always chose the wrong man. She seemed to have a knack for it. She’d fall for the married guy or the drug addict. The 18-year old jail bait. As smart as she was, she was clueless about relationships.  I was just as clueless and, on top of that, lacked her experience. When out on the prowl, we made quite the pair. She, over-the-top. Me, under-the-radar. But we always had each other.

Or we did for the duration of our two-year long friendship.

As our relationship developed, we realized that we shared more than the fact that we were fellow English majors and had a crush on a couple of our professors. We were both passionate, opinionated. Together, we were combustible. Our friendship came to a crashing halt soon after she moved back to New York.

It couldn’t have lasted. We were too much alike and too different. I wasn’t willing to be her tag-a-long, and she wasn’t willing to be my hero.

But for that tiny little island of common ground that we shared for those two precious years, I am grateful. And because I knew her, I am changed. 

Author's Note: This was written in response to The Flicker of Inspiration prompt "Common Ground." Check out some of the great posts linked up at The Lightning and the Lightning Bug.

Female friendships are definitely strange animals. Have you ever had a friendship where you were the hero or the tag-a-long? Have you ever had a frenemy? Why are female friendships sometimes so hard?

Confessions of a Gleek, or the Anatomy of an Obsession

To those who know me best, it's no secret that I have a tendency to obsess about the things I love. That's probably the understatement of the century. God love my parents and my husband for putting up with me and all of my obsessions. Especially my parents. They've lived with 28 years of me and my "loves," including but not limited to: horses, Johnny Depp, Alfred Hitchcock movies, Jimmy Stewart, Dave Matthews Band, musicals, writing, reading, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights, James Dean, Ireland, anything and everything Irish, cooking, gardening, cats, animals, owls, black birds, birds in general, The Beatles, Counting Crows, history, ghosts, zoos, scary movies, love stories, food, anything Southern...I should probably stop. Before I seem crazy crazier. I tend to be passionate over everything my heart loves, and I mean passionate. That's who I am, and what follows is a look inside my overly-passionate, obsessive heart.

I purposely left off one of my major obsessions from the list above because it may actually be the mother of all obsessions and is the subject of my post. This obsession came to life the moment I heard a rumor that the show might have been a twinkle in its creator's eye. Then I saw the preview for it and fell head over heels.

When the Glee pilot originally aired in May 2009, I thought I might die between its airing and the airing of episode 1 in September 2009. Thankfully, I didn't, but I'm pretty sure Jeremy was sick of hearing about Glee THEN.  Poor guy. Yep, I'm a total Gleek. Nope, I'm not a 12-year old tween with braces and glasses, singing Celine Dion's "All By Myself" at the top of my lungs in my purple, horse-decorated bedroom...but I once was. And my 12-year old self loves Glee. Loves it. Heck, I won't lie so does my 28-year old self.

But with all of my obsessions, there's usually some kind of reason or logic behind my reason for obsessing, and Glee is no different. Which brings me to: The Anatomy of an Obsession.

The Underdog, Anti-Hero, Dreamer Lady

Let's start with the Glee's heroine: Rachel Berry, a character most people love to hate, but one that I absolutely adore. She's not neat. She's not easy-to-love. She's sometimes obnoxious, has questionable judgment, and is pushy and opinionated. But she's just the kind of character I love the most: the anti-hero(ine). Look, people aren't simple. None of us fit into easy categories, and if we do, then we probably need to re-evaluate our depth and sense of self but that's another post for another day. Rachel reflects (an exaggerated version) of real life. She dreams and chases those dreams shamelessly, and the dreamer in me respects that tenacity. Plus, she's an underdog, and I am a complete sucker for an underdog, also another post for another day.

Unrequited Love

Ah, unrequited love. Could there be a single person on the planet who doesn't relate in some way to unrequited love? Then again, I'm sure there are some people who have never longed for someone they can't have, but Glee's probably not the type of show those people could relate to anyway. I'm getting off-track. The unrequited (mostly) love between the Glee's main characters, our favorite underdog Rachel and popular yet awkward football player guy Finn Hudson, is definitely a key component to my obsession. Love stories that begin with unrequited love and end with happily ever after thrill me! And while happily ever after is yet to be determined on Glee, the "getting there" with Finn and Rachel's story has me hanging on and enjoying every minute of the ride.

Random Outbursts of Song


Music makes the people come together. Madonna knows what she's singing about, for real. And music, although I don't have any talent for it myself, moves me. I sing songs at the top of my lungs. I analyze lyrics and composition and the way songs make me feel. And because of a deep love and appreciation for music, I've always adored musicals. The random outbursts of song fill my heart with joy. When I was a teenager, I used to wish life could be a musical. If I could only sing about my love and heartbreak, it would make it so much easier to handle! Or so I thought. But, really, what is Glee but a musical? A never-ending musical and that's even better!

The Message

To wrap up this unnecessarily long post (see? I told you I'm obsessive), I'd like to touch on the final and perhaps most important reason behind my obsession with Glee: the message. Glee tells the story of misfits and underdogs, and it teaches viewers about acceptance. The gist of the show? We're all different, but we're all worth loving, whether we're weird, gay, black, white, purple, gothic, self-conscious, curvy, OCD....or a tiny bit obsessive by nature. And to me, that's a message worth obsessing over.

Do you have an obsessive personality? If so, what's your obsession? 

Oh, and PS - Are you a Gleek? Glee lovers unite! :)

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