Being Cool...

I have been cool approximately 10 minutes of my life. Total. Maybe.

I have had really cool stuff happen to me. This does not in fact make a person cool. This simply means you were in the right place at the right time. Which is true for me about 75% of the time.

Being cool is this thing that always seems to just escape me. I never quite say the cool thing. I never quite make it on wearing the right clothes at the right time. I always just tried a little too hard in high school. Actually, high school was mostly about just skating on by, except for my Student Council days. But that didn't make me cool. That was just leadership and decorating skills and planning skills.

I was never athletically inclined. I danced. I was pretty good. Not fantastic. If we had the money, I probably would've gotten good at it. Other than that, not an athletic person. Cheerleader...in the first grade. Softball...Rec league, where no one really cares. Soccer in high school...i played the last 10 minutes of every game because the coach took pity on me.

College was really my blossoming years, as a person and as someone who knew the way she wanted to be. But years of knowing I was never cool still followed me to college and affected the kind of person I was not, not as badly as it had in high school, but enough to where I can still tell the difference between how I used to be and how I am now.

The way I got through high school and even parts of college, was being a people pleaser. I wasn't cool, I didn't quite fit in the way I wanted to, so I was really kind and really helpful. Sometimes to the point where I let myself be talked to in a way that wasn't kind and to where I allowed myself to be in bad relationships because I just wanted to be accepted. Because I had a hard time accepting myself.

I'm a very dorky, awkward, kind of hilarious person. No matter how much weight I lose after I have my baby, I will never be 'petite' or 'cute'. I will always be taller than average. I will always have a tendency to just kind of say whatever is at the tip of my tongue because its how I feel or because there is no point in holding back anymore. I will trip over my own feet, but dance rather gracefully because I had 4 years of ballet training, which makes me semi-graceful. I will read for the rest of my life, because it is how I learn and I like to learn and know and have 7 million random facts floating in my head for conversations with the many different people I know in my life. I like relating to lots of people and I like helping people, but I learn more and more everyday that helping and pleasing is not a way to be accepted. It is a way to be used and abused and mistreated.

The funny thing is, is that when you start changing, people don't like it. I understand it, to an extent, but i don't. Its hard for me some days, because I want to slip back into people pleaser mode to keep the peace. But, i'm not so good at keeping peace anymore. I get aggravated when I realize my kindness is being taken advantage of. That really creams my corn, a lot. And people don't want to take me seriously. They think that i'm nice and so they can do what they want and I'll come back for more. I have friends, good friends, and a nice family and the wonderful boy and a baby coming. I have a pretty full life. I'm tired of adding people who want to use me for my car and my perks at the radio station and other such nonsense. But then people get angry when i stand up for myself. If it was them in my shoes, they would act much the same way. I'm not mean. Not yet.

What concerns me the most, is that if i don't stop now, my child will follow my path. I already want so much more for this little person. I mean, you can't help personality, you are what you are. But, if mommy is not a pushover, baby will not be a pushover. I find more and more, everything I do is not only for the betterment of myself, but the betterment of my future child. It makes it a lot easier to not slip back into people pleaser mode.

Geez, my emotions are in overdrive right now. I need my pregnancy hormones to chill out!