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I am cool.

Well, cool for my age, according to my son. (Still, this is high praise).

I spent a lot of years chasing this peculiar title, Cool.

I wasn’t one of the cool kids at school. I was cool at 4-H camp, but I’m not sure how high that rates on the “Overall Scale of Coolness.” (I am sure this is a thing).

I wanted to be cool.

I bought expensive Fancy Ass jeans so tight they could only be zipped while laying on the bed. I woke up 2 hours before the bus so I could style my very large, very back-combed, very hair sprayed 80’s hair. I covered my eyelids with a lot of blue eyeshadow and my lips with Bubble Gum Lip Smacker. I asked my parents to drop me off down the street or pretend they didn’t know me in public. I wore runners in winter and left my coat in the locker. All of this attempting to be cool.

It amuses me looking back at her. A girl who wanted to fit in and sometimes made poor choices trying to impress the wrong people. I’d like to tell her none of that matters, not in the scheme of life. But she wouldn’t take advice from an adult like me. And, truthfully I wouldn’t want her to be any other way.

I know she found her way because here I am…46 days away from turning 50 and I am cool AF.

Maybe I’m just cool in my own mind. Maybe I am cool because I don’t care if I am cool or not. Either way it doesn’t matter, I have more important things to be.