The Supreme Court ruling today on the Voter Rights Act is shocking. I am still reading and listening to analysis so I will refrain from ranting at the moment. One thing is crystal clear though, Ruth Bader Ginsberg can never retire. The world is a better place for having her in it. Prior to the awful ruling – defeating Voter Rights by using the evidence of its success is just twisted – I was mulling the idea of frenemies.

Frenemies are friends who capitalize on opportunities to do you ill. Whether out of jealousy, spite or competitiveness, a frenemy will always help you fail or look follish. In a self-awareness moment straight out of a Disney movie, I suddenly realized a few weeks back that I am my own frenemy. Cue the music.

My inner voice always seemed like it was offering criticism in the interest of improvement. You know, the way a friend will encourage you to not give up, hang in there, you can do it. Except my clever frenemy encouraged me to measure success by being what other people wanted, until I had forgotten what I actually wanted. This sudden knowledge wouldn’t have been as significant if I hadn’t then encountered two other people struggling with putting their square peg into a round hole.

No news that these were women. The impulse to blame your self when you don’t fit is pretty deeply ingrained in the female DNA. You have to be trained to look your frenemy in the eye and say ‘its not me, its you’. I wonder how the male frenemy manifests? I will have to ask my husband.

Discovering that I had contorted, adjusted, manipulated and plain old forced myself into behaviors that are incompatible with who I am and what I value, is to malicious too blame on myself. It was that former friend, now frenemy, named Amanda. Its hard to break up with old friends but sometimes you just outgrow each other or lose what you had in common, run out of things to say.

I have less in common with  my frenemy this week than I did last week, so we have been talking less. Leaving space for other friends & fun. I may never delete her from my address book but I anticipate fewer 3 am conversations over tea.