What matters most. Sophia Bush opened up to Health in its September 2015 cover story about the devastating loss of her ex-boyfriend and best friend, former Google exec Dan Fredinburg, who was killed in an avalanche on Mt. Everest in April.
“Losing one of my best friends a few months ago shattered me,” the Chicago P.D. actress, 33, reflected. “There were days I felt like my body had been turned inside out. I felt like my heart was on the outside of my body and everyone who came near me was stabbing me. And the crazy thing is that since Dan died, the lessons have come like Mack trucks.”
Bush and Fredinburg dated for 10 months before splitting in August 2014, after which they remained close. The travel-loving tech exec, who was a Google adventurer and the head of privacy for Google X, died on April 25 at age 33, after a Nepal earthquake triggered the avalanche on the world’s highest summit. After the tragedy, Bush took to her Instagram to mourn her late friend.
“Today I find myself attempting to pick up the pieces of my heart that have broken into such tiny shards, I’ll likely never find them all,” she shared at the time. “Today I, and so many of my loved ones, lost an incredible friend. Dan Fredinburg was one-of-a-kind. Fearless. Funny.”
Since Fredinburg’s death, Bush’s biggest takeaway has been urgency. “There is no next time,” the One Tree Hill alum told Health mag for its new issue. “There is no excuse to wait a day to do what you want to do and to change the way that you want to change.”
What Bush wants to do is make a difference. “I always wanted to save the world,” she shared. “My parents thought it was sweet and that I’d outgrow it—and I never did!”
But sometimes, her fears — big or small — hold her back. “The word enough is a monster for me,” Bush told the mag. “I don’t know how anyone ever feels that they are enough: successful enough, smart enough, pretty enough, healthy enough. I got so scared the first time I decided to say, ‘I am terrified of not being enough.’ And what came back tenfold — women who identify, women who sympathize and women who experience all of that — was mind-boggling to me. We are so in this together. And that helps. A friend said to me, ‘Let it be enough, whatever you did today. You went on a two-mile run and you didn’t do a circuit-training workout? Who cares? Let it be enough.'”
The former Rose Queen was transparent about the pressures to look good. “I think it’s hard for everyone,” she mused. “We are so conditioned as women to hate on ourselves all the time, but look at what we can do…. This is me, whether I like it or not. I will never be as tall as Gisele [Bundchen]. I will never have bone structure like Hilary Rhoda. I will never have Penélope Cruz’s hair. So who cares?”
In the same vein, she also cited Amy Schumer‘s skit “Compliments” as her favorite video. “We’ve been taught that being validated by a man is something to strive for,” she shared. “But when we get validated by women, we brush it off, we act like it’s stupid and we immediately insult ourselves. What if we took validation from our female friends and let that fill us? I would wager women wouldn’t compete over men’s attention the way that they do.”
The September 2015 issue of Health hits newsstands on Aug. 14.
