You never know who is going to remember you or the impression that you leave on people.

I have always thought of myself as the insignificant one, the shy one, the one no one remembers. The girl at the school reunion you can’t even remember being in the same class with. I freely admit that in the low self-esteem stakes I’d give an arthritic earthworm a run for its money.

I have always been convinced that people won’t remember me after I am gone and that they definitely won’t miss me. I am the geeky one who is slated to go psycho in the movies, leaving the survivors telling the press “she was always so quiet…” Think that girl in Buffy who goes invisible because everyone is ignoring her. That’s me.

A couple of things have happened lately to prove me wrong, or at least make me think I have left an impression on a handful of people at least.

My mum ran into one of my old primary school teachers the other day. She was my form teacher when I was five? Six? No older than that. As soon as she clocked who my mum was, she was straight over the room, asking about me and how I was doing now. Even twenty years later, she remembered everything about me whilst mum was struggling to remember her name.

On top of that, I am, according to my work mates, both cool and not shy. At least, that is how they perceive me. I was talking to the Boss Lady a while back and she suddenly stopped and looked at me. After a minute, and more than a little uncomfortable with this scrutiny, I asked her what was up. She blurted out “you’re really quite cool, aren’t you?”

In response to my blank face and incredulous giggles, she explained further. “The hair, the tattoos, the attitude… You are just cool”. My jokey reply was “but of course” and I laughed it off, but the comment stuck with me for a while and made me think some about what we mean by “cool”.

I was never one of the in crowd at school, though I painfully wanted to be. I just wasn’t rich, tall or blonde enough. I was too much the individual to totally follow the herd, but I wanted to follow the herd and craved their approval (still do), and I suffered for it.

In the last year or so, however, I have come to to accept and embrace my individuality. I am never going to be tall or slim. Blonde isn’t a good look on me. Rich? One day, but it is not actually as important as Happy.

I have tattoos because I want them. I do odd things with my hair because I hate to be bored. I wear the clothes I wear because I am just not the right shape for high street/fashion clothes. I have the attitude I have because of the way I was raised. Does that make me “cool”?

If it is cool not to be a sheep, then yeah, I am cool. That is not to say I don’t admire or emulate people, or want acceptance, but the people I tend to emulate are quirky themselves. And those whose acceptance I crave are just as oddball as me – more so, because they see me as the normal one!

So if cool is to be all that, all that I am, then OK. I am cool. I can live with that label. The Cute Canadian said that the first time he met me he was knocked back by my confidence and sublime air of “coolness”, verging on an aloofness or superiority (in a cute, nice way he assured me). All I can remember of that first meeting is being a gibbering wreck, so kudos to my acting skills!

It is not about apologising for who you are. I have realised that now. You are who you are and you are glorious for that. What you are is what you have. Don’t change that for anyone other than yourself. Don’t pretend. Smile and accept. Revel.

If you are not having fun, you are probably doing something wrong.