Being Cool Posted by Hannah on March 10th, 2010

When I was younger, I was ridiculously shy. Granted, I’m still fairly shy, but I was so shy that hardly anyone I knew even knew who I actually was.

I quickly grew up with this habit of picking up whatever my friend’s loved and running with it, even if I didn’t like it. I wanted to please them and I wanted them to like me.

I wanted to be cool.

I grew older and continued to hide who I was from my friends. My best friend from elementary school through half of middle school didn’t even know who I was. She had no clue that I was madly in love with playing Barbies. I loved that with all my heart and soul. The only friend that knew me for who I was was another girl that was shy like me. I think we connected because of that.

Looking back, the only person I ever had imaginary tea parties with, aside from my brother and parents, was her. She was a wonderful girl, and was the my only real friend for quite a few years.

In late middle school, I became friends with this one girl, and I immediately changed for her. I wanted to be her friend. She was crazy smart–well liked. I wasn’t. I did everything she did. I dressed like her. I wore my hair like her. I did everything I could to be her friend, and she went to high school.

I had her in the back of my mind that next year without her and, as soon as I went to high school, I gravitated to her and to my old habit. I had friends that knew me for who I was at this point, but I still felt that I needed to be her friend to be cool. I had to change. I couldn’t be myself; that wasn’t good enough.

Pretty recently, that girl left my life, seemingly, forever. She still tries to pop in from time to time. I think she thinks she can still control me. But what she doesn’t know is that she’s the only person that I have tried to change for since middle school. In 8th grade (my last year of middle school), I became best friends with the girls I’m close friends with now. They love me for who I am–flaws and all! (And I’m quite flawed.)

I’ve grown to see that changing only made me depressed and frustrated. When I go to rehearsal for Tartuffe (my current show), I know they all know me as me and I get to let loose. This past month, I’ve had little time to escape the confines of my house, work and school, which are places I don’t get to let loose. Down time at rehearsal was my chance to take a deep breath and relax.

The last rehearsal, I entered the one hallway in my practice petticoats, character shoes (dancing heels, basically) with a cookie halfway in my mouth and plopped on the ground in front of my fellow cast mates like a little kid, and they love me for that. They love that I’m myself. I love to be “small” and “childlike.” I’m still a very mature individual, but I like being like a kid. I look so young and I feel so young, that it has always suited me, and it’s what I love doing.

Being cool isn’t being what others want you to be. Being cool is always being yourself.

Filed under: Beliefs, Friends, Theatre

One Response to “Being Cool”

  1. Georgina
    March 10th, 2010 at 12:59 am

    In the past I definitely think that I hid parts of my personality from other people because I thought people would laugh at me for what I liked reading, what I liked doing, what I looked like, how I dressed, how I talked - everything. I just wanted to “fit in”. I moved around with many groups in high school until I found my closest friends, who I still have now. High school was a time when I found myself and I wasn’t afraid to be me.

    Being cool is definitely being yourself - rather than what other people want you to be. It’s sometimes hard to fit in and make friends - hey, making friends is tough. But in the end, we always want people to like us for who we are, and for us to connect because we have something to talk about with genuine interest.

    Feeling young, and happy, is something to really smile about, Hannah. <33 *glomps*

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