You don't have to be the cool girl

 

I've always wanted to be the cool girl. You know exactly the girl I'm talking about too - your mind conjures up that particular brand of effortless-easy-breezy-Effie-Stonem-doesn’t-give-a-shit chic. She can put together the perfect all black outfit, complete with smoked out midnight liner and a milkless espresso to match, but in a way that makes it look like she doesn't care. Like she rolled out of bed from a party the night before and somehow looks the perfect mix of careless yet put together. An effortless contradiction. In other words, she doesn’t exist.

I think my first desire to be the cool girl was at school (i.e. the breeding ground for all of our past trauma, but dear reader, that's another blog post for another time). I remember every hint of explicit femininity being demonised; from owning a glittery pink pencil case to shedding a single tear on the school playground because you tripped and ripped open your knee. Anything vaguely linked to teenage girlhood was seen as a weakness and a flaw. As far as I knew, boys didn't want girls who expressed how they felt, boys wanted girls who didn't outwardly seem to exhibit any emotion at all. And back then all my self-worth lay with, you’ve guessed it, male validation, so naturally, I rose to the challenge. Unlike the ‘not like other girls’ girl, the aim of the cool girl is not to be desired. It is almost the opposite in fact, not caring if she desired at all, and why would she? She's got to focus on making sure her hair looks just tousled enough to look like she didn't spend two and a half hours on it.

Of course, experimenting with different aesthetics is pretty harmless, and something we all dove into during successive pandemics. But it becomes more of an issue when parts of a particular character seep deeper than surface level, namely when you're locking away crucial parts of who you are for so long that you can no longer find the key. Or even worse, you forget there was ever a door.

From the point I realised I was interested in boys (a dark time), I've thought - or at least I've told myself - that I wasn't dependent on having relationships. That somehow wanting a connection with someone else was a weakness, and that they were something I could easily take or leave. Rather than seeking anything out, I'd often find myself in the position of becoming friends with someone I really liked, before either getting out as quickly as possible or reluctantly entering into something I didn't really want to, because (and this is painful to type), I was straying from being the cool girl. In either case of course, I was doomed to fail. I was clinging so tightly onto being this version of something I thought was right - namely easygoing, distant, the opposite of 'needy' - that it made me lose sight of what I really wanted. Of course, this hard exterior often faltered, namely in the form of Tumblr poetry saturated with my inner-most feelings (and pretty poor metaphors). But also in my breakups. While throughout the relationship itself I’d manage to give a pretty convincing performance of being the ‘one who cares less’, when it reached its inevitable end, the emotions would sweep me off my feet like a tidal wave. Suddenly it would hit me how much I fucking cared about this other person and how much losing what we had was going to hurt. The cool girl was nowhere to be seen.

Even now, even with all the hindsight and self awareness, this longing to be someone I think I should be is still very much there. I’m still scared of caring too much, of being too much, of immersing myself fully. I give people parts of myself, but never everything, and that’s ok of course. We all have worlds inside of us that noone may ever know anything about. But it’s something that has swelled to the surface recently, being at a point in my life where I’m having to make proper grown up decisions about things. I’ve convinced myself I don’t want to do things despite holding myself back so tightly I wouldn’t actually know if I did. The longing to be the cool girl has morphed into something else; more than lived in liner and refusing to message first on msn, it’s an entrenched fear of wanting to get too involved in anything. Why? I guess there’s a million reasons, but most vividly, is the fear it’s going to go wrong. That I’ll have cared so much, when it does go wrong, it’ll hurt.

And that’s what I’m just now beginning to come to terms with. That being hurt is part of being human. That feelings are messy and spill out over the sides. That emotion isn’t a weakness. That things can and do go wrong. But maybe it's not that they're wrong, maybe they’re just not what you expected them to be.

Unfortunately this isn’t one of those posts that can be neatly enveloped and sealed with witty conclusion. But if it is something you can relate to, I hope it makes you feel a little less alone. I’m sending you all love during these stranger than strange times (though that word barely seems to touch the sides anymore) and stay safe. 

Georgia xxx

Remembering to look after yourself

 OK, so it really shouldn't take #WorldMentalHealthDay to prompt me to write a post about mental health but here we are.

This is something which is particularly difficult to write about, for most people I imagine, as it's something that so many of us keep close to our chest. Whilst now, *thankfully*, it is gradually being spoken about more on a general level, it's still rare to hear about the individual experiences of people who have struggled, or who are still struggling. And that is the key; being aware that those struggles are not black and white. There is no set start and end time. Even where there are periods of miraculously impossible happiness, that darkness has a tendency to wait in the wings, ready to eclipse the light. 

Darkness is how I describe these periods, predominantly because it's an easy way of encompassing an impossibly complex feeling, which I would never, ever be able to describe. Like wading through treacle and being stuck in a long forgotten memory, like being underwater and forgetting how to swim, like remembering part of a dream and for some reason, you can't quite open your eyes.  Maybe it's  even more of a shadow, drifting in and out of focus, completely dependent on the time of day, the year and the weather. In short, impossible to predict. 

I don't think sharing all of my own struggles is something that I'm quite ready to do just yet. This is  mainly because I haven't quite faced up to them myself, which is, in of itself, part of the problem. With every passing storm comes an overwhelming sense of guilt. What have I got to feel sad about?

This is why we need to talk about it. Mental health is something that applies to everyone. It's like muscle health or bone health or fingernail health; just because it's not visible, doesn't mean it should take a back seat. If it's not something that's taken care of, the effects can be incredibly damaging, harmful, and very, very visible. 

Whilst I'm prone to self-deprecation and use humour as a handy defence mechanism, it's important to acknowledge the times when you're less than okay. It's easy to worry about those around you, but remember to look after yourself too.

Photos by the wonderful ed2too

Do you know yourself?

Be yourself.

Those two words seem to be the single piece of advice that can be applied to just about any dilemma:

Relationship troubles? Be yourself.

Trying to get on your manager's good side? Always offer to make tea, but most importantly, be yourself.

Struggling what to go as for Halloween this year? (One would hope the answer here would be with a hint of sarcasm.)

Anyway, you get the gist. So what is it that's so appealing about this little phrase, and why do we so often see it as one-stop-fix-all solution for making problems disappear?

To quote Chandler Bing, "I'm not so great at the advice, can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"

Ultimately, telling someone to be themselves in the way they respond to a situation puts the decision back into their hands. Whilst it's usually said with the very best of intentions, and whole lot of trust in what that response will be, 'be yourself' is basically another way of saying 'you know what to do.'

With this in mind, it's almost ironic to think that a phrase so closely linked with one's own authenticity is actually even more closely linked with choice. The choice of how we respond to everything and anything, every single day. 

Is this a problem? Before I fall even deeper into an existential crisis, I think one thing is worth pointing out; we're far from two-dimensional. Whilst it's easy to be under the impression that your feelings need to fit into a nice little box with sharp corners and straight edges, so rarely is that the case.

The same goes for ourselves. We are ultimately collections of all the thoughts, feelings and experiences we've ever known, and with each issue we face, this collection continues to grow. All of the poorly worded texts, the misconstrued sentiments and the mixed messages are there to equip us, so next time, we'll know what to do. 

And that's what being yourself is. It's less about second guessing and doubting every decision you make, and more about having faith in what your past has told you. It's got you this far. 

photos by the wonderful dorcikimages