(not) another brick in the wall.

The concept of "cool" has always eluded me...

In elementary school, I can remember that I literally WANTED to be nerdy. I think it had something to do with the way I idolized my older sister (hey, I'm willing to admit that I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread for a good portion of my youth!) and the way she was so smart, but I really had a desire to wear glasses and braces and to dress a little dorky. It also could be attributed to my rebellious streak (I have one, believe it or not). However, being "cool" was definitely not something that I even began to care about in those days. "Cool" to me was going into the swamp or studying spiders or reading a book in one day. But then, I was a really weird kid. I liked to go out and pretend to be in a fort in the woods, I liked to put on talk shows in my living room, I was pretty sure there was nothing cooler than THAT.

I think the only time it occurred to me that I really genuinely cared about being popular or cool was when I hit those awkward pre-teen middle school years. But what can I say? Braces, frizzy hair (I had yet to discover heat styling...), clothes from Goody's, and acne just weren't the "cool thing" at the time, so I was pretty much SOL. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't miserable all those years because I had such great friends, lalala, but I will say that those years of ugly duckling syndrome definitely made an impression on me. Being the "ugly" or "weird" girl always sort of haunts me, even today. It really was just an awkward time for me - going through puberty a little earlier than my peers set my hormones in a rage, and my orthodontist didn't seem to care that I already had glasses and acne to make me a genuine loser, so braces it was! (Though I must admit to being thankful for my delightfully straight smile now!)

And even though my friends from that time still are a big part of my life, and they are probably the best way that I made it through that awkward transitional phase, I know that I was miserable. I find it strangely ironic, considering that I never had planned on being the popular girl in the first place. However, being constantly made fun of to my face by people I barely knew was just.. horrific, really. I'm not sure how I dealt with it in all honesty.

And then there was high school. Yet another transition phase for me, but this time, it was if I were emerging from the cocoon. Luckily for me, I got to start high school in a brand new place - at the school where my mother taught science. Now, I think a lot of kids would have chosen not to attend a school where their parents worked, but I was so desperate for a fresh start I was just going to have to accept the circumstances. Besides, Harlem (which is where I eventually went to school) had one of the best theatre programs in town, and I had always wanted to try my hand at theatre. My super nerdy (yet wonderful!) older sister had really found a home there in the theatre program so I felt like it was worth a shot. So I go to high school there.

Harlem is a small town. There is only one stop light, and a festival dedicated completely to Oliver Hardy once a year. It is a silly, tiny place, but in all honesty, I could not imagine ever being happier in high school. Sure, I had a host of self-esteem issues, but doesn't every fifteen year old? Especially after three years of being made fun of, my appearance became almost an obsession. The funny thing was though, that I was always a bit off of what was cool. I refuse(d) to accept a manikin as a definitive way to dress (and I still do). Instead, I would choose the most bizarre (yes, more bizarre than even now) outlets for my fashion expression. I had a phase where I would only listen to swing music and profusely told people that I had been born sixty years too late, and I had a phase where I wore a pony bead necklace every single day without fail. In fact, one day my drama teacher (who had become a second father to me) said to me, "Could you just not decide what to wear when you woke up this morning?" He was clearly joking, but it still rings true.

As a side note, the one thing that I discovered in high school was the theatre. I found a family there, I found art there, I found joy and self-confidence. Pretty much every actor at some point has this realization that their sole happiness comes from their craft and being onstage, and it really was the way that I discovered how not only to be confident, but also that being myself was once again cool, if only to like ten or so people. Nerdiness and all.

I graduated, never really knowing what it meant to be "cool" from a small town high school where my mom was a teacher, loving theatre (my salvation from the normalcy of every day life), and with bigger dreams than I'd ever had when I was younger.

And then, college. Now "cool" in college is so much different than cool in high school. I'm a theatre major, so everything is pretty warped for us. We live in a giant glass fish bowl, and there really is no way to swim out of it, so these are the people who are here to judge your "cool factor" (so to speak). Things are different. I feel judged more frequently by merit than by my looks (which consequently leads me to feel much less uncomfortable with my own body), and I know that in the long run being "popular" doesn't matter as much as how hard I work and how much drive I have to get what I want.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that conceptually, I'm done with it. I'm completely over what "cool" is. I don't have to like what you like, or wear what you wear, or even care about what you care about. It's not worth my time. I guess everyone goes through this phase, but it finally hit me last night that the whole group mentality thing is not what is important. You just have to remain positive and upbeat, you just have to work hard, you just have to do what you perceive to be the right thing to do - otherwise? You're selling yourself short. There is no mold that we all fit into! You cannot force people to like you by doing what they expect of you because there is no way possible that you are being completely true to yourself.

And isn't that more important?
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Thoughts from Robin. Stress abounds, I feel very blessed to be living the life that I am.