WTF is a Chelish?
It all started back in High School (how far back is that you ask? far enough). A friend of mine made the mistake of calling me "Chels"*. I lashed out. Like, I was irrationally angry. Red in the face, increased heart rate, yelling, kicking, punching (well maybe not so much kicking & punching...but you get the idea) angry. My friends were all 'woah, dude...calm down'. But it was enough that they gave me a new nickname. chelchel. Somehow, I decided that this was better than Chels and it stuck. It became my AIM name, my new email address...everything was chelchel. To this day, I use chelchel as my username for most accounts.
A few years later (though, still in high school), chelchel became just Chel. Though in retrospect, I don't think the two nicknames actually had anything to do with one another. A friend just naturally shortened Chelsea to Chel (because everyone has to have a 1-syllable nickname...it's just necessary), instead of the more common Chels. I was OK with that though. I liked it.
Fast forward to my freshman year of college. When my new roomies and I introduced ourselves, we were required to give a suitable 1-syllable nickname (because it's a thing...I already explained this). I, of course, said they should use Chel and avoid Chels if they valued their lives. :-)
As we got to know each other and grow closer, my roommate KJ (or kaje for short), started noticing that I had some quirks that were unique to me. Be it absent-mindedness, habits, vocabulary, whatever - she deemed these behaviors "Chelish". As in, "that's so Chelish" (ah-ha!) or "that's such a Chelish thing to do/say". It wasn't necessarily negative or positive...it just was (or so I choose to believe). For example, I wore a watch in college. I wore it on my right hand, even though I'm right-handed. ...that's so chelish! It became so commonplace that they started calling me Chelish too. I even went so far as to get a t-shirt printed that said Chelish across the chest (I'll have to dig it out and post a picture some day).
*I have no idea why I reacted the way I did to being called Chels. I just get really bad vibes, almost to the point of a panic attack when I'm called that, even now just writing about it, my chest is getting tight...ugh. I attribute it to the mother of an old friend from elementary school who always called me Chels. I didn't get along with her very well and thinking about her now grates on my nerves. I don't know why. She never did anything to me. We just didn't mesh, and that has forever ruined Chels for me, I guess.
You are so cute!
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