Stay Cool, Boy

“Cool.” It’s something I want. Something I want to be, but it’s not an acquisition piece.

Cool and Brave were the two things that came up in some writing yesterday – qualities that I want to be or have more of. Both require similar levels of self-assurance and self-acceptance.

I went into the word “cool” for myself – what did I mean by that? What does it mean to me? Well, cool, to me, means being calm, confident, not boastful, involved in a variety of activities, engaged in the world, having a sense of ease about oneself and place in the world. Cool means knowing you have a right to be where you are. Cool means a lack of self-consciousness. And a lack of worry or fear.

Similar to brave, I imagine.

A few months ago, I fell in desperate infatuation with a black leather jacket. This is how I want people to see me. This is how I want to see myself. This piece will make me cool.

See, but it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t buy the jacket on the spot, and instead received it for half the store price from an online site as holiday present from my dad. I got the jacket in the mail in December, and it sat in my closet.

I was scared of this jacket.

What it would mean of me, or of what I projecting into the world. Can I own this jacket? Not in the possession way, but in the dominate way? Instead of the jacket wearing me, can I wear it?

The jacket stayed in my closet until earlier this month. I would take it out occassionally. Fawn over the delicateness of the leather; the instant cool it gives. But was it me, or was it the jacket?

Finally, I wore it. I felt both impostor and proud. I felt both seen and the desire to not be seen – can you see through me as I wear this? Do you know that I don’t have many tattoos or a Ramones album?

Over the last month, I’ve worn this jacket a few more times. And each time, it does for me what I hoped it would – it’s helped me to embody the coolness that, somewhere, I do believe I have – if we define “cool” as I have above – as a calm sense of self-assuredness and place in this world.

The jacket is becoming a tool, not a costume.

I struggle with my own feelings of worthiness around many things in this world, including obviously a black leather jacket. But owning this piece of clothing, this visible statement to the world, helps me to feel like I’m approaching a different place in it.

No longer content to hide from it. No longer content to hide who I am in it. Yes, I am that girl in the black leather jacket. And I might even have heels on, too.