Cool

I was thinking about high school today when one of my classmates walked in. I love when life is like that. Like when I first heard about voluntourism online, and then the next two magazines I came across and Oprah featured the topic. I am off topic.

I was never cool in high school. I had good friends, so I wasn't a total social outcast, but there were parties I just wasn't invited to. The girl who came in the store was exactly as cool now as she was then. By cool I mean; trendy, so fashion cool, and also nice, so personality cool. And she had a moment where she became self conscious and said I probably didn't remember who she was. We had choir for two years, yes I remember you.

It's funny, to me, how high school can haunt you. I used to think of all the popular kids as one dimensional cutouts of the other. A few actually are. But for the most part, because I didn't have classes with them (or talk to them in class) and didn't party with them, I didn't really know them. We just didn't travel in the same circles. I used to hate the idea of becoming friends with any of "them" (cool kids) because I thought "If I wasn't good enough to be friends with then, why would I care to be friends with them now?" Looking at my yearbook I realized there are a lot of people in my graduating class I've never had a conversation with. That doesn't mean I shouldn't.

When you are in high school everything is the be all and end all of existence. To a certain extent I think that is true. The labels stick in your subconscious. Acceptance would have been nice, but I never set out to be popular. I never had hockey and drinking and hookups as common interests. Plus I was waaayy too shy. I didn't wave my freak flag as proudly as I do now. I just wanted to get through as under the radar as possible. To the people who knew me then I will always be that choir nerd. They will always be who they were in my mind too.

Once you are out of school though, there are very few opportunities to be judged by a large group of your peers. And your peer group changes from same age, same grade to common career, common hobby, common life. If you are lucky you find commonality.

I think everyone is a geek. Not in a demeaning way, but everyone has something they "geek out" about. It may not be mainstream, but even if it is, doesn't make you any less of a geek. "Geeking out" just means you are passionate about something. I hear people all the time apologizing for being themselves. "I'm such a geek but I just love..." you probably aren't the only one. They just didn't want to say so incase it wasn't cool.