Perfectly placed on my dresser among my tattered Barbra Streisand cds and gossip magazines is a snow globe. Inside is my other me.

The other me has never felt pain or insecurities. Her life is like a day in the Barbie dream house. She wakes up everyday at 5 a.m., she does her makeup to perfection, her hair is always smooth and brushed, legs always smooth and shaven, she has time for every assignment, her friends are like an entourage, and she never sees me on the outside looking at her world.

I got her when I was 11, and immediately, she became my role model. My friends would talk about how they wanted to speak like Oprah, or perform like Taylor Swift, or look like Beyonce, but I always wanted to be like my other me. She was my goal. Sure, I could’ve loved Meryl Streep or Jennifer Garner, but they never made me as hopeful or happy as seeing myself with a hot guy on my shoulder or skinny as a stick in Dior.

11 came and went, suddenly I was 14, crying in a dressing room because that little red dress would never look as good on me as it would on her. She never cried, she never spent hours looking for the perfect dress, because it was her that made the dress perfect. She got asked to dances by all the boys and made sure I knew that I would go alone, left sitting during the last song, watching her slow dance.

I vacationed the summer before high school started, and she did not come with me. I felt alive that whole summer. I saw myself clearly, for the first time. I wore what I wanted and I was not afraid to wear those hot pink Vans that she thought looked stupid, or that neon green eyeliner that she silently judged. I returned home confident, wearing my bright-colored clothes, but as soon as I walked in my room, I heard her snicker. She got new clothes over the summer too. They were cuter than my bright colors.

I looked up to her until ninth grade, when she became more harsh. I couldn’t escape her voice and judgment. I let her follow me until my family moved in the middle of the year. The move is when I lost her and forever silenced the woman I once looked up to. I thought I would miss her, but I didn’t.

When she left, I bloomed. I became fashionable on my own, I got the friends she said I would never have, I didn’t cry anymore. I found the perfect dress. And for once, without shame, I was myself, completely.