If I did it fast you know that's an act of kindness But I believe in peace

My entire life, other women have been jealous of me.

I know that is a very Leo thing of me to say, but hear me out on this one.

It took me a very long time to realize that's what was going on, and, to be frank, came at a great disappointment and discomfort level to me.

I don't want anyone to be jealous of me; I want to be everyone's friend. It's a curse of being both a Leo and an Autistic, I guess. Unfortunately, my plucky determination to make friends wherever I go has become a sarcastic joke of, "whelp! look at ME, making friends wherever I go!" As in, you know, someone hating me for merely existing. I have been a Bitch Eating Crackers to multiple people, and there isn't very much I can do about that. Again, maybe this is just me, but I've always found the external projection and blame and  unfounded distaste for someone else strange, when introspection and self-reflection is free!

Everything I have I have earned. I have always had to work 10 times as hard as my peers for considerably less, but no one can ever say that I didn't put in the hours. I know that I was always gifted with aptitudes in multiple areas, but I also knew I had neither the laurels nor the financial backing to simply rest on that. Even my figure and my skin are things that I have poured time and effort into. I feel like that it's also worth noting that every win, however so small,  finds itself stacked against an unsurmountable pile of things that are either working actively against me or set out to kill me.

So, like, sorry that I have nice skin that I have vested a lot of time into, the entire rest of my life is an absolute shitshow.

The sense that I have always gotten from this has been, "how dare this poor brown girl have even so much as a modicum of anything *not shitty*" I always got vibe that from the one-sided art rivalries in high school, but it's just so strange to me that now substantially in my 30's that this is still happening. It's just sad to me seeing people at such a grown age wracked with such juvenile insecurities they feel comfortable enough projecting on other people (let alone me, ffs).

I recently let go of a friendship. This person had become a Bitch Eating Crackers to me over the last several years. There were multiple red flags that I ignored or downplayed (because so often I have been conditioned to downplay my own needs and reactions). This person, who is so obviously deeply insecure, had become increasingly condescending and patronizing towards me. There were little comments like making "jokes" about women who "think they look younger than they do," under-handed comments about me being "plus-sized," projecting their own career failures onto me. They were no longer a "safe" person to me in my brain, but I was going to stick it out for fear of it being labeled a me problem. It's always a me problem, and always my fault.

I am many things, but I am neither plus-sized, nor delusional, about the way that I look. And I just want to say right here, right now, that there is nothing wrong with being plus. Plus-sized and fat are not dirty words or insults, but I do take exception to them being weaponized as an insult towards me, especially for someone who is as small as I am. 

That should have been the thing that did it, but it wasn't. I continued to give the benefit of the doubt, because I didn't want to be branded as "acting out" or "unreasonable" or "over-reacting." Funny how it's always the responsibility of the person who is being abused or mistreated to "control" their reactions instead of the people committing the shitty actions, but I digress.

I have no doubt in my mind that this person is heavily utilizing their weaponized tears against my name at this time. They've gone out of their way to counter-block me (which I discovered after an absolute panic to make sure that they were indeed blocked and that I hadn't forgotten somewhere)--which, by the way, would take considerable effort on the part of that person, because counter-blocking someone who has already blocked you is not an easy task. So this person, who made it very clear the last few years of the "friendship" that I was far beneath them is upset that I left? And even took the Herculean task of counter-blocking me upon themselves when I have no interest in engaging them or anyone connected to them ever again? That's cute. A for effort, I suppose.

I am many things. I am not infallible. I am not without character flaws. I am resentful and quick to anger and I don't always communicate my feelings in the best way. I am clumsy and imperfect. But I am also not insulated by considerable intergenerational wealth or 700 million heavily filtered selfies. I am not trying to be something I am not, I am not in competition with anyone, and I am also not changing that about myself any time soon. I know who I am.

And maybe people are jealous or resentful of me because they don't know who they are, when they could spend that time and effort finding themselves. It took me decades to find myself. It was hard, grueling work of introspection, retrospection, and self-accountability to even still be alive today. I am not even trying to compete with someone who has leaps and bounds more legs up than me; the only thing I can work on is myself. I am not competing with you because I am too busy working on myself.

And in the time you spend posting memes and videos making fun of women who "think they look younger than they do," you could have just moisturized your own damn face.