Somewhere along the trek between girlhood and womanhood, I went through a phase of trying excessively hard to be the most chill, fabulously blasé person ever. The problem was that I was not chill. And I hated it. I yearned to be unburdened from the anxieties of caring and to revel in the magnetism of a breezy attitude. But before I knew it, I’d conjured an elusive halfway point between a desensitized robot and a whimsical movie character, a functioning fragment of myself perennially unfazed by everyone and everything, convinced it would somehow improve my life. You’ve done something wildly offensive I’ll be overanalyzing for days . . . months . . . years? No worries, it’s chill! I’ve invested in you, and you’re still dodging commitment like it’s your national sport? It’s chill; far be it from me to enforce boundaries where my self-worth and general wellness are prioritized. Perhaps the most exhausting part of the charade was time spent watching myself through the lens of others; contorting myself into something more palatable for the next person; shouldering guilt and expectations that weren’t mine to bear; and swallowing discomfort when I wanted to bellow, “I’m not okay with this!”

Thankfully, what I’d eventually come to understand is that having needs and expectations doesn’t make me difficult or some insatiable monster. And a fixation on being perceived as nice or “sooo chill” is a colossal waste of time. This cultural need to pathologize women who not only take the reins of their identity but also openly engage the full range of their feelings—you know, as a healthy human being tends to—remains a fraught battle as old as time. In the name of chill-ness, how many of us have become acquainted with the acrobatics needed to avoid unsavory labels: a “clingy” romantic partner, an unfriendly coworker, a difficult woman. Not taking up too much space or making a fuss is the mandate and, frankly, it’s awful. We are each so deliciously complex and messy; what better way to pay homage to these multiplicities than to feel, to express, and to carve out space to navigate as our purest self? So today and the days to come, I wish for a speedy death to the chill girl within all of us, a kiss of death to the malleable shell of ourselves surviving only on our socialized compulsion to people please. And a long and fruitful life to the woman who has patiently been waiting underneath.