Ask Baba Yaga: How Do I Overcome the Intense Insecurity I Feel Around My Best Friend?

Transcript after the jump.

Dear Baba Yaga,

How I do overcome the intense insecurity I feel around my best friend? Now in our late 20s, we’ve been friends since middle school and she has always been smarter, funnier, more successful, and more interesting than me. When we are with other people, I feel myself fade into the background. She has always been such a wonderful friend to me, but I’ve poisoned our friendship with my own self-doubt. Why can’t I find my own path?

BABA YAGA:

Every-one of us recedes into the background in the presence of ; another . Yr friend too has moments of murkiness — in a forest, the same tree will look to be behind or in front of another depending on where you stand in the path. ) & yr path is always yr own, so do not search for it tearfully ; & when day turns to night we all stand together in the dark, & the darkness is what we feel most . not who is in front of us or behind.

Previously: “Am I Still Friends With a Person If I Don’t Respect Her Anymore?”

Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. She’s taking questions on behalf of Baba Yaga at [email protected].