stop killing yourself to be cool

My little sister is the coolest person on the planet; this isn't my opinion, this is a fact.

I didn't think I'd ever admit this or that it would be true because, as an older sister, it's a rite of passage to be the cooler one. But that's exactly why she's the coolest - because she doesn't give a shit. If I tell Leila she's cool, she says "okay", and keeps it moving.

If someone tells me I'm cool I'll think about it 24/7, gain a superiority complex for a couple of days, and then fall back into a pit of misery when I realise I'm actually not cool at all.

But who gives a shit? What even is cool?

My sister is cool because she's always been her authentic self, even when people made fun of her. She's got the thickest skin and the confidence to be herself without trying.

When I was 17 she told me about how some girls had made fun of her on the bus for being gay, and let me tell you I was fuming, begging her for their names so I could have a go at them. But Leila found it funny- she didn't give a shit that they thought she was a loser. Leila likes what she likes, she does what she does, and she fucking thrives. She doesn't pretend, she just is.

Anyway, back to 'being cool'. What's cool is subjective and changes every 5 minutes, it's impossible to keep up, and quite frankly, it's fucking exhausting.

It's the same with aesthetics and microtrends, every time we fall into the trap of following the newest trend on TikTok we think we're unique when really we're just the same - but is that a bad thing?

I'm not one aesthetic, I don't have one specific style, I have a multitude of layers and clothes and colours I love wearing. I draw inspiration from so many different people and places, which aren't always cool.

Right now, my favourite clothes to wear are my Dad's. His baggy trousers, suit trousers, work trousers, halter neck tops, and unbuttoned shirts. Then I look at the girls my age who wear blazers, heels, and co-ords and look so put together and beautiful and I question my outfit. Am I cool? Am I pretty? Do I look stupid? Maybe. But who cares, those girls don't give a shit about my outfit so why should I?

Cool isn't one thing. It's everything. It's nothing.

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Something I find really embarrassing is how easily influenced I am. How desperate to be liked I am. I feel like this started at a young age, a desperation to be included, and certainty that I wasn't good enough. Although, realising things 'weren't cool' didn't come until I was an early teenager. School is the worst place for suffocating our creativity and personality, anyone who had a youtube channel was absolutely rinsed, anyone who was a bit weird, or didn't bring their PE kit to school in a Topshop bag.

This eager-to-please, desperate-to-be-cool feeling stuck, even after school finished. By my 20th birthday, I'd had 7mls of lip filler, 6mls of jaw filler, 4mls of chin filler, 2mls of nose filler, forehead botox twice, and a botox brow lift. Pardon? For what reason? Growing up my biggest insecurity was my lips, but that's it. Why was I, aged 19 worrying about Botox?

Or how my jawline and chin looked when I should have been worrying about what I was wearing to Atik? It's because we're easily influenced, everyone gets filler now and everyone looks prettier now, right? Wrong.

Some people look good with filler and some people enjoy getting it, and that's fine, but I never even gave myself a chance to like my face without it. I just did it to try and look cooler.

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There are so many people that I think are cool as fuck. That are cool as fuck. And they're all completely different. We spend so much time making sure we look perfect (even if it's the perfect amount of messy), or our pictures are the perfect amount of blurry. It's exhausting and I'm tired. So this is me admitting I'm not cool and I'm tired of killing myself to try and be cool, and I think we'd all be a lot cooler if we stopped trying.

Xoxo

Beth