nice & also cool

I have spent almost all my life trying to be cool. 

At first, it was my big sister who was the coolest. She got braces first, which I desperately wanted, and she had all the knee high boots and hair straighteners and bling-y things way before I did. When she walked out of her room in the morning I stared at her over my bowl of lucky charms like she was THE celebrity icon. There might as well have been a spotlight on her. 

The leader of the social ladder. Friends on friends on friends. She got to have Facebook, which of course made me jealous, but when I got a feature in the profile picture, I practically jumped out of my pants.

She was cool, cool. 

As I got older, she got cooler. She had GUY friends. She went to university. She drank BEER. She was funny, brave, athletic, tall & skinny. Dream girl.

And that wasn’t even the coolest thing about her. What made my sister rank #1 for twenty two years in a row and counting was who she was right down at the core.

She never, EVER gets embarrassed about anything. She’s so nice to people. She remembers peoples names. She calls her friends instead of texting them. She’s the life of every party. She sings and dances and makes everyone sing and dance with her. AND she has a baby. Who she just effortlessly added into her life like she knew what it would be like. And now she’s all of that AND a mom. 8 year old Haleigh can’t pick her jaw up off the floor.

I was the furthest thing from her. I was like stagehand 2 on the episode of my sisters life. 

And I loved it. It rubbed off on me. I was secondhand cool because I was her little sister. Cool by proxy. But those are big shoes to fill.

I wasn’t nearly as able to be myself without feeling crushed by the perception of others. I didn’t have such an easy time with friendships. I was a complete school-driven freak, some would even say…teachers pet….and I never hit a softball even once in my three years of trying.

And then there was this girl I met at university. A big city girl. I won’t say her name because she can’t know I’m her biggest fan but I am.

She was next-level cool. Cool in the way I felt like I couldn’t even look her in the eyes because I would actually pass out. She was FLAWLESS. She knew everyone. I mean everyone. And everyone knew about her too. She could use chopsticks.

Everyone wanted to be her friend. She knew how to throw a party. And she had a good family. She made JOKES. Like actual jokes. Not the self-deprecating, accidentally funny type, she was genuinely funny.

She was so caring too. She made you feel like you were the only person in the room when she was talking to you. She remembered things about you and asked about them later on to check in. She shared her success with others. She gave other girls hot boys phone numbers. She wore her hair in a slicked back ponytail to the bar. 

I would’ve given anything to encompass even an ounce of the person she is.

For some reason could never sort out how to round myself out like that. I feel like in some directions my edges are sharp. My moodiness ruins the mood. Or I say something wrong. Or I’m in the way or something. She was perfectly able to bounce around from thing to thing, person to person, and just be the exact same. 

This other girl, a friend of a friend we’ll say, might also be the coolest person, ever. 

She never really wears makeup. Not in the way that she’s trying to prove something, she’s just so pretty without it. She takes care of herself. She buys really nice shampoo and expensive socks. She is really interested in what she learns in school.

She puts an outfit together every single day. It always looks like she tried but in the way that she also looks like she didn’t try. The DUALITY OF THIS GIRL. She loves the environment. Like really loves it. She’s adventurous. She’s the kind of person you want to film doing things because you know it’s going to be funny or outright awesome.

She’s gentle and peaceful. She fits into a room like a warm candle. She’s just happy to be there, doing whatever is being done, and being a part of it.

I envy this girl for that one reason, she’s so easy-going. She’s up for anything, ready to stay home or go do something crazy, doesn’t really care who likes her and who doesn’t. She’s one of a kind. Although I wish there were more of her because I think everyone needs one.

But at the end of the day, I can’t decide if I’m really stagehand 2 or if I’m the main character of my own show. I can’t decide if I’m cool, too. 

There’s this guy who’s just a friend of mine (crazy concept) but he’s just the best. Really. And he doesn’t make anything weird. Like even sarcastic jokes and roasts don’t feel threatening. I’ve always thought the coolest people are able to ignore things that are awkward or weird or uncomfy and make sure everyone feels good in their skin. 

He just is exactly who he is. He likes things and doesn’t like things. Never too surprised or overwhelmed by anything. He’s nice.

It turns out cool people keep their…cool. They recognize human behaviour and just flow with it rather than let it mess them up too much. There’s a certain group of people that can do this, they’re few and far between. These are the kind of people I trust. 

Sometimes I do things that my top coolest people do and people seem to like it (I mean, duh). But it doesn’t always feel authentic. I want to change, and I’m working on changing, but my moods are harsh sometimes. They just are. I can be argumentative. It makes me physically ill to think about how THATS one of my traits. I’m a lot of things I would never describe as cool.

But somewhere, somehow, I forgot that being cool doesn’t mean being someone else. 

One time this boy I had a crush on told me he could listen to me talk all day. HARD blush. He said he could never predict what I was going to say. Get this, he called me cool.

And another friend of mine told me I was good at coming up with questions for Would You Rather. They thought that was cool.

A girl asked me about my tattoos and when I said they were in my handwriting she thought that was the coolest thing ever. 

Someone said they feel brave too when I’m being brave about something. 

I don’t get it. I see these amazing, fabulous, abundantly creative and beautiful people do things like make tiktoks or get belligerently drunk and somehow STILL think they’re the coolest people to walk this earth, but when I do it it feels like the humiliation of the century.  

What is being cool even?

All the cool people I know have a few things in common:

• they walk the fking walk

• They listen to people intently

• They aren’t ashamed or embarrassed of themselves

• They have great big feelings

• They create bonds that go deeper

• They’re brave even if they’re scared

• They’re brave especially when they’re scared

• They take lots and lots of pictures

• They do specific little things that make them feel happy and better

• They live by their own rules

• They let go easily

• They have fully developed opinions

• They are willing to experience heartbreak/fear/rejection/failure 

• They are welcoming and supportive

• They have passions

• They are straightforward

• They just live 

They just live. 

They do what they were raised doing because it’s normal to them and they’re normal people and their normal is so specifically cool and yours is too.

Your normal is so cool you can’t even begin to fathom it. There’s some boy on the city bus that goes by each morning who sees you walking to work and thinks you are a gift from god. There’s a girl who sees you in a Snapchat story and wishes she could put an outfit together the way you do. There’s people all around you who secretly study you, and start to admire all of the teeny tiny details about you that they find so disgustingly cool they can’t even wrap their head around it. 

You don’t have to have the latest Yeezy, or know the bouncer at every club downtown. You don’t have to have the best job, the hottest boyfriend, the softest skin. You don’t have to be good at skiing, enjoy that genre of music, or rock wide leg jeans (even though you could). 

Simply existing in whatever you think your imperfect-ness is, is what makes you cool.

You don’t have to try. You never did.