What's Cool About Being Uncool

It was a typical fall day in California at the Dodger Stadium when I endured my first big life epiphany. I was attending a music festival for the very first time. I had gotten my boyfriend at the time tickets for his birthday and he had arranged for us to go with his best friend and some girls I had never met. These girls were unlike anyone I had been around. They were insanely cool, creative, and confident. Everything I ever wanted to be. They seemed so sure of who they were, so unapologetically themselves. I remember one girl was wearing a cow print dress and had taken the time to sew cowhide fabric into her film camera strap to match her outfit. They both had matching rainbow-beaded jewelry, and several different kinds of cameras in their purses and around their necks. I watched as they filmed everything around us and I had started to miss a part of myself that I had forgotten even existed. I started to remember the little kid in me who made movies with her cousins and won first place in several art contests and was never seen without a book in her hand. All the creativity that used to be part of me I realized had somehow slipped away from me. In fact, I realized there were a lot of parts of me I didn't recognize. I had lost sight of who I was, pushed it all down so far just trying to fit in. I had given up so much of myself and the things I loved just to attempt to be considered somewhat cool. I didn't have anything that made me unique anymore. No interests or hobbies outside of my high school friends and high school parties. I decided right then and there I was going to change. I was going to find myself again no matter how long it took.

Puberty is funny. As a kid, you are so eager to learn all the time. You explore the world constantly and formulate your likes and dislikes, and they make you cool and unique. It feels exciting to discover these little facts about yourself and develop an idea of who you are. Then, suddenly, you are embarrassed to admit that you have Krav Maga class because none of the other girls are doing it and your uniform looks weird. You quit piano because everyone else you know quit and you want to be like them. You start to pick out clothes because you think they might impress a boy, instead of wearing stuff you like. I put down the cameras and the books and I threw on my Brandy Melville tanks and high-waisted jeans (or Lululemons if we are talking middle school) and tried to be as much like everyone else as possible. I was lost in that phase for a while. If I'm being honest, I think all middle school and high school girls are. We don't even realize that this idea of normal does not even actually exist. It's a facade, an unrealistic idea of a person. Deep down we still all have our little niche interests we hold close to our hearts and hobbies that we keep secret from one another. On the surface, though, we all look the same. Cookie cutters of the typical Newport Beach high school girl.

This moment, at the Campflog Gnaw Music Festival in 2018, snapped me out of this phase. I saw these girls. I saw the community of people I was surrounded by at this festival. They were all so passionate. Some of them had their own clothing brands, some of them made music, and some of them made short videos of moments with their friends. Every person I met there knew every single artist no matter how small. I mean, for god's sake, they didn't seem to put anything lower than 100% effort into everything in their life. None of them appeared to care what people thought of them or if they looked silly. They knew they were making art and that they loved what they were doing. I admired them all so much. This was the first step I took to become myself once again. It took some time, and some trial and error, but at this point in my life I feel very confident in who I am. I learned that it is actually really cool to be "uncool". People actually really like you when you are being yourself. I remember when I first started changing things, I had never gotten so many compliments on how I dressed before. People started asking me for advice on things I was interested in and associating things I loved with my persona. People started actually recognizing me for me. It felt like everyone was getting to know me all over again, and I was getting to know myself all over again.

If anyone was to ask me to describe myself or put who I am into words. I'm not sure I would know how to answer. How does someone put their whole being into words? But what I do know is that when someone asks me that question I am not filled with anxiety and uncertainty. I feel sure of myself, comfortable even. I really don't need to put it into words because I know exactly who I am and I am really happy with how I turned out. Since that festival in 2018, I have changed a lot, but I'm also still the same I have always been if that even makes sense. Those girls sparked a fire in me that had been put out a long time ago in a moment of pure desperation to conform to high school culture. That typical California-fall day brought me many blessings. It brought back the Emily I used to know and love, and it also brought me my future roommate. It was one of the few moments in my life that I consider to be an act of fate.