I’ve recently stopped caring about what people think of me. It took twenty years, but damn it feels good. Want to know how I did it? Talk to my best friend at Emory, Jenny Shub.

It may sound dramatic and exaggerated, but I can confidently say that spending time with Jenny last summer helped me to disregard those people that judge me. Let me explain simply by summarizing what happened last summer.

Jenny lives in Puerto Rico, which undeniably, is a beautiful and amazing country. However, living there, she claims, is boring and rather repetitive; therefore, she wanted to have an internship somewhere in the US for the summer.

She contacted a psychology research lab in Manhattan and solidified an internship there. Once school was finished in May, Jenny plopped herself down in an apartment in a city she had visited before, but never lived in on her own, with two suitemates that she had never met. When she realized that her internship wasn’t as demanding as she had hoped, she took it upon herself to walk dogs as a way to both explore New York City and make some money. Even though dog walking took up some of the time she would have carved out for her internship, she still had plenty of time to hang out with new people. This is where I come in!

At the beginning of the summer, she posted on Facebook that she was living in the City and invited people who live in the area to like her post to get a sense of who would be around. I admired her because I’m not one to post publicly about summer plans, or any sort of plans at all. I had hung out with Jenny once through my sorority prior to liking her post, and we would both agree that it wasn’t anything memorable.

After I liked her post on Facebook, she reached out to me one day during the summer, asking if I wanted to meet up with her in the City. I was happily surprised because I’ve always thought she was a nice girl, but at that point had forgotten that she was living near me for the summer. I agreed, and we met up at Central Park after my internship. I will always remember how carefree and open she was that second time spending time with her. It was so clear to me that she was comfortable and happy with herself and that she was the type of person that had so much love and compassion in her. It occurred to me that I never 100% felt that way about myself.

Over the course of the summer, we hung out more and more. Each time we saw each other, I realized that how amazing she was. As the summer came to an end, I realized that I was excited to go back to school, not just because of how I missed taking interesting classes or spending time with my friends from freshman year, but because I would start the year off with a new and amazing friend that I had barely talked to the year before.

From just spending one year with Jenny, I found out so much about myself. Even though it hasn’t been long, I feel like I’ve matured five years, and that we’ve been close for a lifetime. Jenny, taught me that I can be anyone I want to be and that if you’re not comfortable spending time with someone, they’re not worth it. I realized that if you second-guess yourself or think about your actions at all while seeing someone, you shouldn’t be spending time with them. For that, I thank you, Jen. Thank you for helping me become who I am and for being my idol everyday. Love you forever.