My friend Megan and I have been friends since kindergarten. I always looked up to her. She was smart, and most importantly, she was cool.
She always was there, keeping me abreast of what was cool and what wasn't. If I accidentally opened my mouth and something utterly dorky popped out, she would sternly tell me to stop being a moron.
And, of course, I was eager to learn how to be cool, so I followed her every command.
She made sure to comment any time I was wearing something less than hip, which was quite often. All my clothes were hand-me-downs from my older sister. They reminded me of things you might see in a museum of early prehistoric artifacts.
I just had to face the fact I wasn't cool and would never be cool. The only problem was I didn't want to face it. I figured I'd just hang around Megan as much as I could and learn how to be cool. I stuck by her side constantly; I wanted to ensure that most of my abominable traits would be squashed right as they happened. There was no sense in taking the risk that those things would go uncensored and become even more habitual than they already were.
Yes, Megan was my best friend in the whole entire world. After all, she was selflessly giving of her own time, to help me squash my habitual dorkiness.
Sadly enough, however, her family moved to the other side of town after we finished fifth grade. That meant I no longer had anyone to tell me how I should act, what I should dress like and what I should say.
All my hard work and effort I'd devoted to my personality makeover was flushed right down the sewer pipes that year. I reverted back to dorky old me.
The worst thing about it was that I realized I hadn't actually made all that much progress over the years we spent together. I was still pretty much the same dork that I started out as. There were only scant differences between the "me" I was in kindergarten and the "me" I was in my sixth-grade year.
For one, I was bigger and could do math problems without using counting bears.
Secondly, and lastly, I was fully aware and ashamed of how unbearably un-cool I was.
I figured if I melted into the background and withdrew from the people who really wouldn't like me anyway, I'd be safer than if I tried being cool on my own.
In middle school, Megan and I were reunited within the same school building, but she had obviously found some cool friends she liked being with more than me, so we never really talked much for those next few years.
By that time, however, I'd started getting the hang of blending into the backdrop of life. Unfortunately, there was a gang of mean girls in my middle school who hunted chameleons, and I quickly became one of their favored victims. It wasn't until we entered high school that the gang disbanded and I was in the clear once again.
I was a "nobody" and, as a chameleon, I wasn't seen or acknowledged by more than two or three, occasionally four, people. I called them friends because they seemed to like me, although I wasn't sure why they did. It wasn't like I was cool, but then again neither were they.
For some reason I tended to hang out with adults a lot. I was good friends with my youth group leader Bonnie, who was my mom's age. I had some other adult women that I adored hanging out with. I knew that was another reason I was such a dork, but at least my adult friends didn't remind me about that.
Over the last several years, I've finally been sorting out my personality. It was interesting, but perhaps not surprising, to realize my personality was in the area of 50 percent random tidbits of people of the past, 47 percent random tidbits of the people I currently hung out with, and 3 percent me and only me.
It's a bit embarrassing to think about, but at the same time I wonder how many people end up that way because they've never been encouraged to just be themselves. The people who don't know that just being themselves is not dorky, nor is coolness the most important thing to attain before we die.
I no longer have to try to fit in. I have a small-but-tight circle of friends and the more genuinely "me" I am, the more I'm able to knock down the barriers between me and the world; the more I'm able to genuinely connect with the friends that really matter to me. And, of course, the more I have to stop trying so hard to be likeable and "fit in."
The best part of the story, however, is that Megan and I are actually pretty close friends once again. She, however, is no longer cool. She is a self-proclaimed dork and is actually very proud of that now.
Kate Pavlacka, a graduate of the State University College at Oneonta, has been totally blind for 11 years.
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