A Love Letter For Tina Fey

Dear Tina,

I can call you Tina, right? I've read Bossypants twice, so I feel like I know you. And I love you. This is probably making me sound like a creepy stalker, but I swear I'm not. First of all, I'm not creepy. Second of all, I'm way too lazy to stalk anyone. And if I was going to stalk anyone, it would probably be Taylor Kitsch. Or Jon Stewart. Or Brett Favre.

I have eclectic tastes.

Anyway, I love your work - 30 Rock, Bossypants, Mean Girls, essays, some of my favorite SNL years. But more than your work, I love that you are so honestly yourself. You don't try to pretend that you're perfect or that every aspect of your life is perfect all the time. You have this amazing career, a great family, a bunch of (much deserved) awards, and yet you still fret about things.

I find it comforting. Reassuring, even. The knowledge that even if I became the most successful mommy blogger of all time (or managed to actually finish a book and publish it and have it turned into a movie), with the financial security, uber-patient nanny and awesome housecleaner that would come along with that success, I would still have moments of insecurity. I would still feel like I was juggling things not very successfully all the time. I would still cry for no good reason every ninth Tuesday.

I think our generation of women  has always had this idea that we could do it all, that we should do it all and that it wouldn't be that hard. I have a friend who was really ticked that she was still having these times of insecurity and panic when she turned 40. As if we would eventually hit a point, at 30 or 40 or whenever, where we would have everything figured out. That all those inner critics and inner 13 year olds would disappear suddenly. I had that idea too, until I started reading books and blogs by all these amazing women, who sometimes trip or feel insecure or say the wrong thing.

I'm so grateful to you and to the other successful women who are openly imperfect (Mindy Kaling! Kathy Griffin! Scary Mommy! The Bloggess! Jenn Lancaster! Laurie Notaro! Jenna Fischer! Adele! And that's who I can think of off the top of my head. Who did I forget?). I'm so thankful that you have helped create a world in which Christopher Hitchens seems like a total idiot for not thinking women are funny. I love that you are a feminist in my favorite sense of the word, not someone obsessed with checking all the boxes of stereotypical academic feminism.

You make me look forward to the (fast-approaching) day when I need glasses. You make me proud of my husband for having such a huge crush on you. You make me proud to have a been a theater nerd. You make my teenage self proud to have been called "too smart" by too many loser guys. You make me happy.

                                                                                                          Thanks,
                                                                                                             Jen