How I Lost My Cool

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I am not cool.

‘Cool’ is such a flexible and relative term — even then, I don’t think I fit into any of the categories people normally attribute it to.

For instance, I hardly think of myself as dorky cool. I think this stereotype is perpetuated by girls like Ellen Page in ‘Juno’ or Zooey Deschanel in almost every movie she makes, most especially in her current TV show, ‘New Girl’. The dorky-cool girl is witty, intelligent and possesses her own brand of adorable often recognized as, well, awkward.

In Fox’s ‘New Girl’, Zooey plays Jess, an enigmatic, eccentric, quirky and awkwardly adorable girl who works as a teacher and lives in an apartment with 3 guys who each share a love-hate-but-mostly-love relationship with her.

As a character archetype, she usually has a vast and impressive knowledge of indie music, art, film and literature, dresses cute-eclectic, was ignored (or, even worse, persecuted!) in high school but has ultimately grown into her own independent person. An added bonus: she’s almost always pretty but doesn’t know it, or at the very least, adamantly refuses to acknowledge it.

And I’m, well…. me.

I don’t know much about music despite having been born into a very musically-inclined family. My best friends are probably my only source of real exposure when it comes to art since both are a.) extremely visual by nature and b.) designers by profession. As for literature, I’m not a book connoisseur. I love reading but I usually stick to genres within my comfort zone, specifically: young adult and contemporary fiction.

I’ve always described my sense of style as comfortable. I don’t like heels (why would you wear something that makes you want to kill yourself repeatedly with each step?) or mini skirts (partly because I don’t have the legs for them but mostly because they seem far too complicated to sit down in) or trendy stuff in general (I’ve tried trendy. It transforms me into a stranger). I’d like to think I’m more witty than intelligent (though the wit usually manifests on paper more than it does in actual conversations) and that I’m as awkward as most 23-year-olds generally tend to be.

What I know for sure: I am no Juno MacGuff.

Then there are girls who are cool because that’s the identity they’ve built for themselves ever since high school or college. An identity they’ve established and carried with them long after graduation. Girls who are cool because they are popular and pretty. Girls who either dance well or sing well or are just really good at sports. Girls who are rich and dress impeccably; girls who know where to be and when to be there. They’re different from the dorky kind because they gravitate towards extroversion and it’s that quality in particular that gives them a sharper edge known as confidence.

Somehow, I’m reminded of FRIENDS’ Rachel Green.

To me, they’re… intimidating. Because what makes them cool (aka: what makes other people want to be them or be with them) is the fact that, unlike everyone else, they don’t even try. They’re just naturally unfazed.

And when I think about that kind of cool, I can definitely say that’s not me either.

My high school was too small to have a popularity system so I was ‘middle class’ all the way. I spent college with a rather small circle of friends and ignored almost every non-academic extracurricular event I ever got invited to. I don’t dance, sing or do sports well. I’m not an extrovert and I happen to get totally unnerved by some of the smallest, most insignificant matters. I’m not unfazed — in fact, I’m just the opposite: perpetually fazed by all the things life chooses to throw at me, especially when those things come simultaneously flying at my face.

I’m sure there are many other sub-categories that will further break down the definition of the word but writing about each of them will only create longer stories that’ll inevitably lead to the same conclusion I started this thing with in the first place and that is: I am not cool.

But, don’t get me wrong — I don’t lament this fact any more than I lament being single, for example. Because cool people aren’t really any better than the uncool nor are they any worse. Coolness has nothing to do with character, it’s just an aspect of someone’s personality. Coolness can amplify the good in you the same way uncoolness can and it can corrupt the goodness in you the same way uncoolness can. It’s an adjective, that’s all. One I’m certain doesn’t quite belong to me.

I think this all became particularly clear one day in the 6th grade when our PE teacher announced that she would kick out anyone from her class who wasn’t wearing the mandatory uniform (a white shirt with our school emblem + blue jogging pants). And, yes. That just happened to be the day I forgot to bring mine. So I borrowed one from a friend (I didn’t have many at that particular point in time) but it was two sizes too small (rubber shoes included!). I wore it anyway. (In hindsight, I would’ve picked getting kicked out of class over public humiliation. But I was a lot braver then and didn’t know any better. Plus I was deadly afraid of almost all authority figures.)

On that particular day, we were asked to do individual presentations of some of the local dances we had recently learned. So there I was, fumbling through the steps in front of the entire class, tripping over my feet, in clothes that were unflattering in every angle, in every way possible.

I kind of want to go and give my 11-year-old self a hug right now.

(The uncoolness factor was later affirmed a week after the uniform incident when I tripped, fell and lost a class relay race. Unsurprisingly, this event also happened in PE class. Years later, in college, I ended up doing basketball drills… and by some freak accident dislocated my knee. Also in PE class. I see a pattern here.)

But maybe 23 years of being uncool has given me one small advantage. Because, in the end, it’s the uncool people who have nothing to lose and for that, the world is entirely theirs to do with as they wish.

Which makes me think that losing my cool (even though I didn’t actually have any to begin with) wasn’t such a bad thing. So, yeah. I’m not cool. But I guess the beautiful thing is: I don’t want to be.

When I Think About The Future

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When I think about the future, I imagine my best friends living in two separate cities in the United States. (San Francisco and Boston, if I need to be specific.) I imagine flying out to see them every once in a while — during major milestones, yes, like when I finally turn 30, but most especially during the seasons that I feel the need for my world to be made new once again.

I imagine that the people in my life today will still be the people in my life tomorrow even though life has consistently proven that to be an inexplicable rarity. I imagine a world where we’ve all somehow survived the infamous quarter life rut, found that one thing we really want to do with our lives and pursued it with an unstoppable sense of chutzpah. Crazy relentless chutzpah. 

(Chutzpah: Yiddish for supreme self confidence.)

I imagine that my family is safe and happy, in a better house, with zero problems on their hands — and I have the liberty of imagining something so ridiculously impossible because it is my mind. It is my crazy, hopeful mind.

When I think about the future, I imagine one wherein I’ve seen parts of the world I never believed I’d ever be able to set a foot in. I imagine Paris and Amsterdam and Greece and South Africa and Brazil and Israel and cities and countries that I have yet to even discover. I imagine all the ways culture will change me and I imagine — in fact, I’m confident — that I will let it.

I imagine ships and planes, buses and beaches. I imagine meeting travelers and wanderers. I imagine a Great Education: being schooled by the world on the different faces and facets of life that my city, beautiful as it is and always will be, could’ve never taught me on its own.

When I think about the future, I imagine a life where I am still writing and teaching. A life where I am still carrying crazy amounts of optimism in my veins and telling people about that beautiful and treacherous thing known as hope. I imagine that, somewhere out there, I am still riding on waves of youth and joy, no matter what my age actually is.

I imagine walking through new seasons where the people around me are falling in love and walking down the aisle and getting married and making babies and somewhere in the horizon of my great imagination, I believe that all of those seasons will happen for me too. When I think about the future, I imagine one that’s big enough for both the crazy and the wonderful to simultaneously co-exist. That, I think, is the best possible outcome, to have a future stuffed with both magic and miracles.

But I know — yes, I know — that the future can never be accurately predicted. I know that, though we hope with great fervor, tomorrow inevitably carries with it a million tiny heartbreaks that can’t be swept aside by idealistic thinking.

I know that I am incapable of seeing beyond the now but I still cherish the luxury of being able to dream up a future, even if it happens to be one that will probably never happen, because that’ll make the 1% chance that it does become a reality mean infinitely more.

When I think about the future, I want to see it with the courage of a woman who has nothing in the world to lose.

Things I Learned From Momma: A List

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1. Read to your kids. Read out loud to them, every day. Read story after story and when you’ve exhausted your entire book shelf, read everything all over again. Read to them whether you love reading or not because a heart for words is a gift, a weapon and an investment that will pay off in the long run.

Read to them on sleepy afternoons, even when you’re worried about the bills and what to cook and what to wear and who to be. Get lost in worlds and when you’re ready, make up fantastical stories of your own so that they, too, might one day be creators of their own fiction and folklore.

Read to them and once they get older, read with them.

2. There is very little in the world that is going to give your kids the same education and insight they’ll get from travel. Go places and take them with you. Show them sides of the world they would have never seen otherwise. Teach them what culture looks like and how the silly little quirks humanity is stitched up by are actually all beautiful and necessary.

It’s not about five star hotels or basking in international luxury. It’s about building their wings in unknown places so that, when the time comes, they won’t be afraid to soar. They’ll know how big the world is and they won’t shrink away from the fact – rather, they’ll embrace it.

3. I can’t count the number of my times my mom has said that she didn’t want the last slice of cake when she obviously obviously did.

My mom has never just wanted to give us something; she has always wanted to give us everything.

4. Tell your kids to take their time. In everything. Even when they’re in their 30′s and culture is telling them to follow convention, tell them that they don’t need to subscribe to anyone’s pressure. Tell them that the sky’s their limit, that the well-worn and beaten path is a lie, that they can forge their own destiny if they choose to and that you will be right there behind them as they carve out a future they actually believe in, even when no one else does.

5. Let your children dabble in the arts. Let them embrace it. If you can, pay for their lessons, their equipment and their passions; invest in their dreams.

Even though it isn’t ‘practical’, be on their side and believe that the arts – music, literature, photography, to name a few – can make as much of a social impact as business, law and medicine.

Then watch as they go and change the world, whatever corner of it they belong to.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering – these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for.” (John Keating, Dead Poets Society)

6. Pray for your kids – for their safety, their future and their happiness. Even when your faith runs low, save a little for them. Pray – not out of religious obligation – but because it’s a beautiful thing to place what you love the most in the hands of Something Greater.

7. Love them. Even when they suck. Even when they break your heart, love them and be for them. Make them believe that in a universe of bad things, there is a person who would never fail to see their good.

Love them even though it puts you at a disadvantage. Love them without exception or condition, despite circumstance and mood. Love them because the way that you do will make all the difference. Love their potential and love their ugliness. Love both their capacity to heal and their tendency to hurt. Love them even when you disagree with them. Love them far more than you ever thought possible because love is the only force that changes people for good.

Real love is a gift. It will mold the way they see the world but, and perhaps more importantly, it will be ultimately the standard for what they give back to it.

The hope is that they will love people by the same measure that you love them. And if that’s the case – and this is something I’ve seen my mom do again and again and again – then I hope, above all, that you blow your love completely and totally out of proportion.

A Letter to My Future Child

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My dearest you:

There are very few absolutes in life. Yes, that’s a weird way to start a letter but it’s the first real lesson I want to pass on to you today.

The world you’re being born into is a messy dichotomy of wonderful and ugly. This is a place where sunsets and car crashes can exist at the same time, where people will astound you with both their kindness and cruelty, where everybody does an intricate dance between joy and pain.

But it’s not something that should scare you, not something that should deter you from living in this fine and lovely place. What it is, quite simply, is an absolute and absolutes are something you learn to embrace because they never, ever change.

I’m in my early 20′s now (23 to be exact) and I’m guessing that it’s going to be years and years beforel I meet you (but I could be wrong) and I don’t know how it’s going to happen – if you’re going to grow inside of me or if I’m going to sign legal papers or if I’m just going to inherit you somehow, in a way I can’t imagine – but I’m sure that these words aren’t being hopelessly tossed out to a nameless void. I’m sure of it.

Here’s how I feel about the thought of you:

Imagine the best secret you’ve ever heard, a secret so massive you can’t wait to yell it out to the first person you meet. It’s that feeling of wanting to burst and squeal and shout and exclaim (!!!!); that feeling of being unable to contain the rapturous joy bubbling deep inside of you.

With you, I combust. Because I can’t keep myself from telling you how beautiful the world tends to be. How there are things like travel and romance and heroism. Things like puppies and friendship and double stuffed Oreos. How you’re in for a story, one that I know – with all my heart – will be a great one.

I don’t know if I ever got to play the hero in my lifetime but I know most certainly that I can raise one.

Because you’re going to be strong and smart and true. You’re going to be brave and kind and loyal. These are heavy adjectives for anyone to live up to but maybe if I wish them hard and often enough and maybe if I really try to become them then you will, too.

This world is yours for the taking, my wonderkid. And I hope you don’t shy away from it. But if you do, if you do, know that there’s no shame, no shame at all. Because we all hide in the shadows at one point, especially those of us who are called to greatness.

But I know you, even though we’re years away from meeting. You will charge into your destiny. You will hit the ground running and once you do, there’s no force on Earth that’s going to dare try and stop you.

I know all this because here’s the secret power of your dear old mum: I may not be able to flip a pancake or teach you sports or explain mathematics or sing too well but I will (I promise you: I will, I will, I will) I will believe the best in you. Always.

Thinking about all this now: of the world waiting to receive you, of all the change you’re going to make, of the infinite promise that you carry, makes me wish – for the first time in a long time (because I am happy where I am, let me tell you that) – that time would fly faster so that the future could finally find us. But since time changes its pace for nobody, I guess I’ll have to be happy with the fact that each day brings us one step closer.

Until then, wonderkid. Until then.

They say to love as if the world were ending. But I love you as if the world were just beginning. I love you absolutely. And I hope you remember what I said about absolutes: they never, ever change.

All Will Be Well

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“Hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it’s dangerous, that it’s painful and risky, that it’s making a dare in the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?”

Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

***

When the doctor told me that the cyst in my ovary had given birth to three daughter cysts, the first thing I thought was: “What a whore.”

The cysts are benign but they carry with them endless questions because the truth is that I know so little. If you could read my mind, you’ll see a mess of worry: will I have to undergo surgery and does this mean I can never have kids and will this thing eventually blow out of proportion and kill me and will it hurt and on and on and on.

I can be quite despairing when I feel like it.

The strange thing was that in the middle of all that fear, I started to think about hope. And I realized, while sitting in the hospital waiting room, that it’s not at all what we say it is. Because when we talk about hope, we always describe it as something big and explosive.

But I think we only ever feel that way – I think we only ever feel like hope is this massive indestructible force – when we have nothing to lose.

It’s only when the odds threaten to ruin us, when they are most likely to turn against us, that we realize the true size of hope. It’s a whisper, a card in the backpocket, the ultimate last resort.

It’s a tiny fragile light that we carry with us in a universe of tragedy and monsters.

And it’s not overrated, even when I sometimes think that it is. Because hope is real and powerful; its size has nothing to do with its greatness. If hope was big, it would destroy us. It would take away our ability to exercise reason because we’d all be stuck with far too much magical thinking.

No, hope was meant to be compact. It has to be just enough to push us forward, just enough to help us make the next step – even if that next step is a small and meager one. Its purpose is not to fill us but to keep us going. I never appreciated that about it until recently.

I don’t know much about the future and I know that some hopes end up false – like the one I carried with me when I was 16 and believed that I would have it all figured out by 23, like the one that earnestly thought I would remain pimple-free and healthy forever – but I also know that right now, the chips are down and my worries could far too easily sink me. I am grabbing on to the only thing I know that floats.

Hope. It’s the backup.

And, yes, it may be small, so small I can cradle it in my palm, but it is also infinite. It spans lifetimes and can be taken as well as given. And what hope says is much greater than what hope measures. Because what it consistently whispers, through earthquakes and breakups and sickness and death, is: all will be well, all will be well, all will be well.

And somehow, though it would be so much easier not to believe, I know that what my hope is whispering to me – has been whispering to me since the beginning and for forever – is real and I’d be the biggest idiot humanity has ever seen if I didn’t try and hold on.

So I will.

***

Hope. That’s all anyone ever talked about on the convoy, especially as we got closer. Hope, hope, hope.

All this hope, and here I was, right at the very edge of it, looking out into the darkness, the first to see it coming, the first to greet it when we found out what it really looked like.

But what if? ‘Is it because hope is scary?’ my father asked. I looked back at him, startled. ‘You think so, too?’ He smiled, full of love.

‘Hope is terrifying, Viola,’ he said. ‘No one wants to admit it, but it is.’ I feel my eyes go wet again.

‘Then how can you stand it? How can you bear even thinking it? It feels so dangerous, like you’ll be punished for even thinking you deserved it.’

He touched my arm, just lightly. ‘Because, Viola, life is so much more terrifying without it.’

(excerpt from Patrick Ness’ The New World)

A Certain Version of Courage

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Here’s a story I seem to always find myself teling:

When my grandma was 21-years-old, she left her hometown, her entire family and everything she had ever known, and flew to the Philippines to marry my grandpa.

That was practically a lifetime ago.

When she talks about it now, she seems gripped by disbelief. “I don’t know how I could have done that,”  she says. ”I would never do that again.”

When I was a teenager, I was hopelessly typical even though I wanted to believe otherwise. Because, like everyone else my age, I didn’t think anything could break me or ruin me beyond repair. I went through those wonderful and awkward years with very little caution.

I called it being ‘spontaneous’, ‘passionate’ and ‘a lover of life’.

I’m not really sure what growing up does to you. They say it makes you scared. They say that the reality of adulthood knocks all sorts of fears and phobias into your system, things you never really had to deal with when you were younger.

And maybe it’s true.

Because I’m really not as ballsy as I used to be. But – and here’s the funny thing – I don’t think it’s fear exactly. I think I just want to, as best as conceivably possible, get things right. I think I just want to give myself a real and actual chance at being somebody.

So I think first – I think real hard – before plunging into the unknown. And I weigh the pros and I balance the cons. I approach life with plenty of measured steps. I calculate my risks. Because a part of me truly believes that there is nothing cowardly about being meticulous.

A lot of people around me advocate a certain version of courage. They like to surrender quickly to the whims of travel and pleasure. It seems that our culture romanticizes adrenaline and adventure. We aim to be the kind of people who boldly follow their hearts wherever it leads them, who go wherever the wind dares to blow. Because, you know, you only live once.

And I get it, I totally get it. After all, isn’t that kind of fiery boldness what passion is really all about?

Which is why I feel bad (kind of) to admit that I’m not like that, not like that at all.

After I turned 21, I started noticing a funny inclination towards hesitation. From being absolutely unconcerned about making spur of the moment decisions (because I believed if I didn’t learn from them, I’d at least get to laugh about them someday), I’ve become the type of person who likes to save for a rainy day. I like exhausting possibilities; I enjoy setting aside a Plan B, C, D and E. It’s not that I’m not a YES! girl; it’s just that I’m not a YES!-right-away girl anymore.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not anal about life. I’m not even the slightest bit a perfectionist. I know you can’t plan for the days when everything blows up in your face. But I guess I like the sobriety that comes with not being reckless.

And I think what growing up actually brings isn’t fear but commitment.

I’m 23 and the world is out there and yes, I still believe that I am going to conquer it and do great unknowable things. But it’s going to happen slow and steady, over time. It’s going to happen as I learn to plan and strategize and fail and get back up and stick to my decisions and have the guts to say no and save and wait and finally, leap when the moment is right.

Because at this age what I believe in with rather deep conviction is the power of right timing.

It’s going to happen – not in the middle of an emotional rush – but in the midst of the quiet calm of someone whose learned to master the cards she’s been dealt with.

I don’t believe reckless abandon is the only courage we should adhere to. There’s a different kind, a quiet one.

Veronica Roth, in an online interview, said:

“Ultimately I think the problem is not with bravery itself but with how people misinterpret bravery. Some people decide that bravery is demonstrated with violence or mercilessness or even risk-taking. And if you push bravery too far in those directions, you often end up with cowardice.”

Sometimes courage is sticking it out, having a plan and learning to look ahead before you leap. Because it’s true what they say: you only live once. That means we have every reason on earth to make it count. We’re worth more than gut instinct, worth more than a feeling. We’re worth the courage it takes to value the art of prudence.

***

Some Less Acknowledged Acts of Bravery:

  • Waiting.
  • Saying no.
  • Being still.
  • Surrender.
  • Taking the long road.
  • Not taking credit.
  • Letting go.
  • Letting it slide.
  • Admitting when you’re wrong.
  • Keeping quiet.
  • Extending grace to the people who annoy you.
  • Forgiving.
  • Holding back.
  • Saying the hard stuff.
  • Losing.

Feel free to add your own!

May Flowers

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One:

You’re never always in love even though you always love. That’s the truth. Your heart doesn’t always swell and your feelings don’t always translate into waves of golden glory but that doesn’t mean that whatever matters has suddenly stopped mattering.

I love writing even though I’m not always in love with it. Even though there are days when I feel like I never ever want to write again, even though sometimes I write and the words clumsily tumble out of me, even though I tend to destroy them right away because, sometimes, I hate them so, so much – I know that I will always love it. And in the light of always, the even thoughs barely matter at all.

And this, I suppose, is what real love looks like. It’s a knowledge you’re secure with, even when the feelings don’t follow. It’s an anchor, a cornerstone. It’s nothing less than truth.

Two:

It’s only now – in my early 20′s – that I’m starting to remember that I was (and have always been) quiet. I used to play with my stuffed toys alone, in a corner, creating worlds with my mind, and I liked it that way.

But the world doesn’t quite understand the quiet kid in the corner and so we’re often portrayed as less engaged, enigmatic or (no point using euphemisms) boring. So in high school, because I felt I had something to prove, I became loud.

I staged all this roaring noise, let it really pour out of me – loud talking, loud laughter –  just so that people would know that I wasn’t at all who they believed me to be. I wanted to show them that I could be vibrant and opinionated and so much more than just the quiet girl who liked to read.

ENFP - that was my Meyer-Briggs assessment when I first entered college.

But your real self manifests over time; your real self will always manifest over time. And now, at 23, I am reverting back to who I always was. But (and this is crucial) this time around, I’m embracing my introversion – the part of me I tried to make untrue for so long.

Here’s what Susan Cain has to say about the matter:

It’s different from being shy.

Shyness is about fear of social judgment.

Introversion is more about how do you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation.

So extroverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their most alive and their most switched-on and their most capable when they’re in quieter, more low-key environments.

Not all the time — these things aren’t absolute — but a lot of the time.

I was always so afraid to be seen as weak (I still am, if I have to be absolutely honest with you) but I never realized – until now – that there is great strength in the quiet. While the people around me brandished their loudness as a weapon, I was harnessing worlds with my mind.

I am still trying to wrap my head around how I could have ever seen that as a weakness in the first place. Quietness is a beautiful strength. And maybe, if you get to know me, and as I myself get to know me better, you’ll find that it’s in the quiet that actually I speak the loudest of all.

Three:

There is something I love about the stories I am currently reading. They all have this part where the author separates the guy and the girl. He puts a mountain of conflict in between the two so that they have no other choice but to journey forward, down individual roads, until they’re eventually reunited again, somewhere towards the end.

I love this part because you can see the tension and the terror rising in their hearts, the uncertainty of ever meeting again and in the separation, you see how each of them grows – how the best of them is born in the distance that divides, when all they’re fueled by is ridiculous scary blind hope.

I don’t know but there’s just something really beautiful about that.

Because we’ve been raised by a culture that tells us that to be alone is fatal. We’re encouraged to press on to people, to cling to them, but sometimes I think that the best way to love people is to learn how to navigate the world by ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong: I do think we need people. I just think we become all the better (like the characters in my story books) by traveling down certain roads alone. I feel that we’ve forgotten (yes, myself included) the value of contemplation and introspection, the beauty of finding who you are, finding who to be, in a place known as solitude – a place that (contrary to what people believe) really isn’t fatal, isn’t fatal at all.