Nerd: A Tale of Faking and Making

I have a confession to make.

I hate wearing my helmet.  I hate it so much.  And not just because I hate how it physically feels, pressing my sweat-soaked hair against my equally sweat-soaked scalp, denying me the glorious sensation of wind that is the natural born right of everyone who straddles a bike.  No, my hatred and resentment goes beyond that.  I hate wearing my helmet because in spite of all my ballsy proclamations that, "Safety is sexy!", the truth of the matter is that my helmet makes me look like a nerd.  A nerdy-goody-two-shoes-rule-follower.  And I cannot stand knowing that I look like a nerd, gentle readers...

...because I am a nerd.

I'm not talking about being a geek.  I'm not talking about my love of science fiction and fantasy, of my proclivity for reading comic books and playing RPGs, or of my sporadic status as "girl gamer".  None of these things make me uncool (helllllooo geek-chic).  But my deep-rooted instinct to be a "good girl"?  To play it safe?  Total nerdsville.  And I am... still kind of insecure about that.

I know, I know- I am probably the least insecure person you know.  I not only am fully aware of my own awesomeness, I am fully willing to go on- at length!- about it to anyone who cares to listen.  Fer Pete's sake, I write a blog.  Obviously I do not have self-esteem issues, here.  And for the most part that's very true... but what's also true is that my self-confidence is a decades-old, carefully cultivated facade that has slowly but surely become reality.  I acted confident and uncaring-of-others'-opinions until it became the truth.  More or less.  But deep deep down I am afraid that any minute now people are going to look at me, see past my tattoos and bright lips and uninhibited dancing and realize:

This girl freaks out about jaywalking.  Cool people do not take pause at the prospect of jaywalking.

Cool people do not wear helmets, because cool people do bother to think about the consequences of not wearing helmets.  Or, if they are really cool, they do wear helmets, and don't even think about whether or not they look cool because hey- cool people are cool no matter what they do.

Which brings us back to me being a nerd.  I am a nerd because I am afraid that people will see a nerd when they look at me.  Not because of anything that I do, or wear, but because of who and what I am.

But I will pretend that I don't care what people think when they see me wearing my dorktastic helmet and one of these days... it will be true.