I Should Have Been a Cowgirl

I should have been a cowgirl.

Every morning, my mom drove me to school with Shooter FM, the town’s country station, playing softly in the background. The familiar tunes of Toby Keith and George Strait were a comforting part of my routine, but stepping out of the van meant entering a different world. To my classmates, country music wasn’t just unfamiliar—it was laughable. They’d often remark that if I ever turned it on the radio, they wouldn’t hesitate to throw me out of the car. What started as simple jokes and harmless teasing soon led to me no longer showing up to school in my bootcut jeans and cowboy boots. I still wonder how sad my mom must have felt when those boots ended up sitting on the top shelf of her closet, collecting dust instead of protecting my feet. Her world was still filled with biscuits and gravy, tales of Saturday morning skunk hunts, and "Forever and Ever Amens." At the same time, I was slowly drifting away, trading in the things I grew up loving to fit in with the crowd.

Today, things have changed, and suddenly, it seems that everyone has a Southern twang. Dolly Parton has become everyone's feminist icon, and pop artists like Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, and Post Malone are diving into the country genre. My friends go to Zach Bryan and Luke Combs concerts, and I wonder when it suddenly became okay to have country music on my playlist again.

Now that country is cool again, I lay down at night and think of all the interests I let go of as a little girl out of fear of judgment and rejection.

My knee-high Converse with rainbow laces that would have finally been considered “fashionable.” Maybe I would still be an adamant reader, more confident in my poetry. I think of my Michael Jackson phase, the “oldies” that weren’t trendy until high school, and my extremely unique Halloween costumes like a vampire princess or the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater. I wouldn’t have hidden my "Bieber Fever" out of embarrassment or listened to girls who told me I was too old for stuffed animals, because now everyone's bed is covered in Squishmallows.

I wonder if I would have been less shy if I had let myself be a little weird. If I’d just let myself be a cowgirl. I should have stayed the whole ride, from "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" to "Texas Hold 'Em." I should have been a cowgirl through it all.

What's cool should not be confined by time and trend but by passion and interest.

This ideology runs deep for me, especially in a world where trends come and go in a flash, constantly telling us what’s "in" and what’s "out." What we forget is that trends are fleeting—they change faster than we can keep up, and what's popular today will likely be forgotten tomorrow. What you are teased for now might one day be loved by everyone. Thinking back on the things I loved as a kid—Miranda Lambert, duct tape wallets, my calico cat Build-A-Bear named Juliet—those weren’t just hobbies or fleeting interests. They were pieces of my identity, small expressions of the unique person I was becoming. But, like many of us, I let them go because they didn’t fit with what was accepted at the time. I traded what I genuinely enjoyed for the sake of fitting in, trying to mold myself into someone I thought others would want to be around.

So yes, I should have been a cowgirl. I should have learned to rope and ride, but most importantly I should have held onto the things that made me unique. If I could go back, I’d tell my younger self not to let go of what she loves just because others didn’t understand.

Now, I want to make sure my little sister knows that what sets her apart today is exactly what will make her special tomorrow. Embracing who we are, without fear or shame, is the real way to stay true to ourselves regardless of what's on trend.

Boots, country music and all.