Maybe the sense of inevitability comes from knowing Hillary too well. She’s become a stand-in for the archetypal women who frighten and repel us: The woman betrayed. The castrating woman. The cookie woman. The dowdy woman. Right now, some very loud people are not ready for what Hillary really is: the indomitable woman. Barring anything unprecedented, the nominee. Real, and brave. Defying all caricature.

And so we forget to be surprised by Hillary’s achievement. We begrudge her, and ourselves, a few moments to bask. We expect Hillary to do great things. That’s always been the Wellesley girl problem — no one can be surprised by her accomplishments. We expect nothing less. She’s always among the smartest in any room. And so she raises the bar. How exhausting it must be. How demanding we are. Nothing women do is ever really good enough.

I’ve been stunned by some of the pieces I’ve read, by women who were supposed to be her friends. Lacerating, petty, misguided, judgmental and arrogant friends. She isn’t likable, they say. Somehow the mean girls always grab the mike at a party.

Never mind that millions of us not only “like” Hillary, insofar as that means anything, but we are inspired and awed by the years of service she has devoted — to us! Millions of us find in her a model of thoughtfulness, of temperance, of discretion, of intelligence, of diligence and resilience, those most undersung of her sturdy values. She’s a model of sly wit, of compassion and, yes, of integrity. I wish I could spend hours picking her brains about stuff, hard stuff, like how to keep the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good. Or how she raised such a terrific daughter.

I cannot fathom how she finds the energy, much less the fortitude, to still be slogging it out on the campaign trail. It cannot ever have been easy to be Hillary, probably not even back in those days of waking up to Chelsea mornings. But there it is, the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn over the years, the trait we all have to develop to get anywhere in this world. Hillary is tenacity personified. And it is beautiful to behold.

We can’t like Hillary, we can’t know who she is, the guys tell us, because she doesn’t know how to have fun. “What do you do for fun?” is a question millions of women hate, by the way, and it usually comes from men who don’t have a clue about what’s such fun about the things women love doing. Having heart-to-heart talks with old friends, or cuddling a grandchild, or watching the paint dry in the living room, or, yes, actually even having fun at our jobs! Traveling the world! Meeting interesting people!