Back From the Vortex

This happens every year. The light becomes a scarce friend, classes pile up, the stresses from the previous quad solidify into one large stone weighing on my heart until I'm like Giles Corey from The Crucible, being crushed under the weight of so many stones.

But this morning I emerged from the black vortex. Because I remembered this little gem from Parks and Rec. My alter-ego Leslie Knope feels like what she does, the work that she loves, stacks up pretty poorly compared to her fiancees DC colleagues. So she goes back to Pawnee and enters her own black vortex, and tells her adorable side kick Andy Dwyer "Maybe Ben should just go in a helicopter and drink champagne with Hot Rebecca and leave me." Andy asks who Hot Rebecca is. She's a compilation of every successful, beautiful, flawless woman that could ever exist, a phantom character Leslie puts all of her insecurities in and lets her imagination run wild. Everything Leslie dislikes about herself, Hot Rebecca has the opposite in spades.

Andy says, "You're not Hot Rebecca. But you're Kick Ass Leslie. And that's so much better."

So, this is what I have to say world: I am not Hot Rebecca. My finances are a small disaster zone, I am under academic water, my scale always says bad things to me, my friends are walking through their own mini-disasters, and I feel powerless to make it all stop. But guess what. I am Kick Ass Emilea. And I'm not powerless, I get the chance to refocus. I'll feel like I'm Kick Ass Emilea because I have a budget (it's not sexy, but neither is debt), because I am doing homework almost 24/7 (because having a bachelor's degree is considered pretty hot in the job market), because I am actually taking care of myself, because Jesus loves my friends and is walking with them step by step when I'm not there.

I'm Kick Ass Emilea. And that's way better than Hot Rebecca. Because Hot Rebecca doesn't get to live my awesome, blessed life with my fabulous, beautiful, and remarkably amazing friends.


Much love,
Em

And to be honest, I'm not quite sure how Hot Rebecca could beat this. Take a look at me and all my friends from this weekend. Aren't we fabulous?