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What do you do when someone you admire stumbles off their pedestal?

She's bold, and brash, and flamboyant, and unafraid of people's opinions. She knows how to read people, how to open them up and encourage them. She loves to take care of people. She enjoys life, and does everything as passionately as I do. We have so much in common, she's started calling me her "Mini-Me." I consider her one of my best friends here, and I used to want to be her so badly it was ridiculous.

She once invited me to spend a weekend at her parents' house with her and some friends, and it was one of the best weekends I've had in a long long while. Then recently I stayed at her house again for a singing competition in the area, and we got to know so much about each other that I found the heartbeat of her life and realized she's as human as I am.

And I didn't stop idolizing her just because her life has been hard. I actually admired her much more because she could be such an amazing person after such a past. I just... stopped seeing her as larger than life. And then when she, one of the greatest sopranos I've ever met, twice pulled out a cigarette to help her with tension, my idolatry slipped. She, who once looked down on another girl for smoking and taking such chances with her voice, was doing the same thing.

It wasn't an earth-shattering occurrence, or anything, I didn't lose all respect for her- I just realized she was as flawed as I was. And then later at a party in her apartment I saw her trying to drown her past in Zima and the pedestal crumbled. She's a human now, with a crooked halo and an indomitable spirit and I love her dearly, just as I hope she loves me back.

What makes a person think that someone else has a perfect life? Why do we assume such things? It shouldn't take a firsthand experience to bring home the fact that everyone struggles. I shouldn't have had to hear her horrific youth to know her toughness and fa�ade of confidence were built on that. I shouldn't have felt like it was a wake-up when I heard her break into sobs after a disastrous phone call to her ex. I shouldn't have been quite so shocked that my new friend said, "I told myself not to let anyone in. I shouldn't have let him in, because this always happens once they realize what a horrible person I am."

I'm no good at being inspirational, or uplifting, when I'm used to receiving comfort from the one I'm trying to comfort. She was the one who told me to let go of the past, and here she was drowning in hers. I said what I could, and reminded her how much of life is meant for loving, not avoiding. I tried to say back the things she said to me, told her that keeping people away out of fear only ends with loneliness, that there was so much to love in her and one day someone truly worthy would see it.

Do you ever notice how sometimes, when telling something to someone else, it truly sinks into your own head? Like teaching a subject you're shaky in to someone else. It cements it in your brain. So maybe it's true for me, too.

Ugh, I'm tired. Recently I've even gone to the lengths of writing a list of good points and bad points I've noticed in Charlie Brown. I listed everything possible, and it filled an entire page. I started writing in the margins. The good outweighed the bad, but it scared me how much I knew. With that on my mind, I noticed Drummer Boy rapidly encroaching, apparently encouraged by I don't know what, and I realized that the reluctant, awkward feeling he instills in me is probably how Charlie Brown feels about me.

Commence breakdown. I haven't really cried since I found out about my friend being date-raped months ago. But I cried that night. I ran to the music building, destined for a piano I could abuse for a while, and ran into the last person I wanted to see: CB himself. It was so ironic, that the one time I didn't want him to notice me, he did, and he, concerned, asked me to talk to him. The command and plea in his voice was so strong on my jangled nerves- I've never wanted to hug someone and cry on their shoulder so much in my life. I ran away.

How do you tell a boy that you're crying over him? It's the same dilemma I had with my Blue-Eyed-Boy last year.

When I'd played out my pain for a while, and managed to dry off the piano keys when I was done, I walked back to my room regretting my words to him: "You're the last person I want comfort from right now."

My five-minute apology call at 10:30 that night stretched on, ranging from telling life stories that were scary in their similarity, and honest opinions of each other's faults, to occasional laughter, and a reluctant good night at 1:00 a.m. He pried confessions out of me and I finally heard the words I'd been needing (but dreading) to hear: "I think of you like a sister."

Don't get me wrong- I didn't want to hear that. I just needed to hear it. I can stop eagerly putting on make-up and stop trying to catch his eye and stop wondering if he's quelling his feelings for some reason or another. For him, it's just simply not there, and I don't have to wonder anymore.

So it's a bittersweet kind of freedom, but I can't say I'll miss having to put on mascara for him. Give me time. I'll remember how nice it is to not need someone.

So one by one, my idols fall. I think I like them better when they're dirty on the ground with me, instead of shining over my head as some goal I'm reaching for.

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