Growing up I always wanted to be one of "The Cool Kids". You know the ones I mean; the ones who always seemed to be the most confident, have the most friends, wore the trendiest clothes. But I most definitely wasn't. I was awkward, nerdy, self-conscious, and a loner. I was never on trend, nor was I a trendsetter. I was the girl who read books on the playground while everyone else ran around with their friends. I mostly kept to myself until I found a group of friends in marching band during high school, other people who were misfits most other places and who embraced the weirdness. But even in that group I felt more like a hanger-on than a real integral part of the group.
College was a little better. College is a very different world from primary education; the hours are irregular and so are most of the students and professors. There was room to be eccentric. It was a melting pot of different interests and focuses and backgrounds. Most folks were too focused on their own journey to really care what anyone else was doing unless it affected them. If you wanted to wear cat ears to class, you did it. Wander around campus in cloaks at odd hours? Sure! Have a niche interest? There's probably a club ready to welcome you. I found more people like me with strange interests and habits and for the first time in my life was a social creature. But I still felt like I was on the edge of everything, like I was a second thought when people were invited to things.
When I got sick it was like I got reset to square one again. The friends I'd made in high school had mostly moved away or on with their lives, my college friends were all hours away. I was isolated again. I played World of Warcraft for a while, joined some guilds but never really felt like I was part of any of those groups. I got friendly with people at work once I was doing better physically, we'd hang out for a while and eventually not at all either because we didn't have the time or my health (physical and mental) kept me from doing things. I never really felt like I was part of any gathering I was at and would most often be found at the edge of the crowd peoplewatching, looking for that magical window of opportunity to open up and allow me to be one of "The Cool Kids".
Now, I know that a lot of these feelings are part of my depression and anxiety. I didn't know that when I was younger and knowing it now doesn't doesn't change the fact that those feelings exist. It's hard to fight that negative voice in the back of your head that constantly whispers "You're not good enough", "They just include you because they pity you", "You'll never be good enough". I've been doing a lot of work in recent years to make that little voice quieter, or failing that to shout over it with more positive thoughts. But, it's hard work and it's so easy to feel like you're failing each time you notice that voice creeping up on you.
In my last post I wrote about how I'm doing GTA RP on the TSRP server now and the adventures I'm having as Cupcake in Los Santos. Part of that adventure is that I stream while I'm playing, meaning that I'm putting myself out in the world in a way that a younger me never would have dreamed of. I'm sooo new to streaming that sometimes I feel like a poser amongst some of the other streamers who have years of experience doing this. As always, I felt like an outsider pushing their way in to something bigger and better than they should be involved with. But, something changed.
It wasn't long before I noticed that people knew me (Cupcake) and happily greeted me in any group I seemed to wander into. I found a few close friends in my first days on the server and on a whim one day we held an impromptu party at a lighthouse on the coast. I never expected the response we got! There had to be 20 people at that party at the height of it including some of the most popular folks in the city and some of the big streamers! People are still talking about that party weeks later. We made a name for ourselves, Glowhouse, with that party. I was shocked to realize, I felt like I was truly welcome for the first time that I could remember.
The server has a discord for the fans of TSRP and one of the channels is for fan art. I've been watching as all these different characters have received artwork depicting memorable moments or portraits. There's even people making art to be used in the server. That voice in the back of my head said, "You might belong on the server, but you're not one of The Cool Kids. You'll never be one of The Cool Kids." And then one day last week I got a direct message from someone on the fan server. In that message was an attachment, line art based on my channel icon. My first fan art.
I don't think that artist will ever understand exactly what that did for me. Not only did they like my character, they liked me. I inspired someone to create something. I was overwhelmed with so many emotions I could barely process. I was excited, hopeful, shocked, and I don't even know what else. The nasty little whisper in the back of my mind was, blissfully, silent.
The artist said they might color it if they felt inspired to. I swore to myself that if they colored it I would set it as my new channel icon. I told myself that if they colored it this was a sign I was meant to keep doing this, a sign that I was one of "The Cool Kids". I didn't dare message them asking for a colored version, I felt I would be pushing my luck at receiving even the line art and might scare them off.
Two days ago, I got another message from the artist. They'd colored the drawing.
