Hillary Clinton, my not-so-evil twin

IN THE late 1990s, after I crossed the threshold into middle age, friends and acquaintances began telling me I looked like Hillary Clinton - a development I was less than happy about. My reaction had nothing to do with politics, it's just that I had always seen myself as more the artistic dancer type, and she was, well, the lawyerly, down-to-business type. Our styles didn't match.

Around that time, I was palling around with three semi-retired gentlemen who had started a writers' group in my town. The trio embraced me as the organized sort, good for securing a meeting room at the local library - a lot like Hillary - and they quickly noticed my resemblance to the nation's first lady. They soon forgot my real name and began addressing me by hers.

I was able to ignore this image problem until one Thanksgiving, when my father took one look at the gold suit and red derby I had donned for the holiday and said, "Hillary Clinton." That was the final straw. Either I was slimming myself back to my dancer period, or I was going into the celebrity look-alike business. I more-or-less opted for the first choice.

The street talk about Hillary at the time was harsh - it implied she was too ambitious and emasculating to be a president's wife, and her disastrous healthcare reform effort proved she was ineffectual in the eyes of many. With such an unlovable image, who would want to be compared to Hillary? I spurned the similarities.

Around that same period, I was living a typical, suburban lifestyle, chauffeuring children in a minivan, participating in a neighborhood book group, and visiting the hairdresser every six weeks. I had plenty of time to help plan a cultural event at my children's elementary school, promoting women in professional careers. Local lawyers, politicians, and businesswomen were on the speaking roster, but I wanted something more. I wanted Hillary to attend. After all, who was more representative of career-minded women than our country's first lady? I had visions of Hillary addressing our town's daughters from the gymnasium stage in a room brimming with onlookers. Just think of the lasting impression she would leave, I reasoned.

Clinton's staff sent her regrets with an autographed photo. When the package arrived in the mail, it wasn't the rejection letter that made my jaw drop. It was the picture of Hillary, whose hair was coiffed exactly like mine. Was this a coincidence or had my freewheeling hairstylist been playing a joke on me?

I launched into action, stepping up my exercise routine and weaning myself from my routine salon visits, allowing my hair to grow below my shoulders. The soccer mom leisure suits were replaced with jeans, and the gold suit retired to the closet. Eventually the Hillary comments died.

Now years later, I realize, my aversion to being Hillary had nothing to do with Hillary, after all. It came from my own need to be liked, which for me was more important than to be seen as a leader pioneering new territory - the way Hillary did. That role has always belonged to her - a fearless mold-breaker. My path may never cross hers, and she will never know how so not like her I've spent the last decade being. But as the historians hit the keyboards, I'm starting to get a twinge of regret. Maybe I should have taken another look in the mirror.

Joyce Pellino Crane is a Globe correspondent.