Dear Nemesis,

In high school, you were everything I wasn’t. Beautiful, smart, talented, effortlessly thin, loved. I think I envied the love most, the thing I always lacked - fought tooth and nail for, sold away parts of myself to find. You were never unkind, but a sleepover invitation - not on the list for a delinquent like me. No matter how many times I scrubbed, it felt like my face was always dirty from the inside. College, I thought for sure I’d left you behind. Not a thought, a hint, a whisper. But then suddenly an explosion - Facebook. The birth of comparison, a breeding ground for envy. You were still beautiful, and now the perfect spouse, the perfect wedding pictures, a shiny degree - the same one I fought for, bled for, took nine long years to put in my back pocket, you did in five. I thought the universe was laughing when you picked the same profession, my face still so dirty from the inside, agonizing over every comment, so much love and so much praise. They loved you, why didn’t they love me? Maybe it’s because I didn’t love me. Every ambition, every dream - You did it first, you did it better. And you never even knew I was watching, screaming at how easy it all seemed. But that’s the problem with social media isn’t it? The grass is always greener because it’s fake. I watched you chip away the layers, revealing something I never saw coming, a real live human on the inside. Beautiful, smart, talented, loved - and yet wounded all the same. Healing from the years of scrubbing your face, hiding the fear and vulnerability beneath a shiny, polished exterior. Turns out, it’s not about everyone else loving you, it’s about us, learning to love ourselves. Time to release this post into the wild! Share it like you share memes after midnight. Conk’s Brain is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. To hear more, visit conksbrain.substack.com