Tales from Rural Maine: The opposite of cool

For most of my life, I have wanted to be cool. I have the potential to be cool, in theory, but I have proved time and time again that I am lacking a level of indifference, composure, and quick-thinking required to be truly cool. Instead, even at the age of 41, I still possess the capacity for childlike wonder. A couple of years ago I saw my first monster truck rally and the radical sensation of joy, amazement and thrill I experienced was visible all over my face. Pure happiness rocketed through my body. I looked like a six-year-old meeting Mickey Mouse or whoever it is at Disney World that truly rocks kids' worlds these days. Or maybe I looked like a six-year-old seeing her first monster truck rally. (They crush CARS with TRUCKS!!!)

I get spazzy and giggly and authentically enthusiastic instead of cool. I light up like a Christmas tree whenever I get to put on my turnout gear. I see someone I like and I behave more like a puppy than The Fonz or whoever it is that represents cool these days. I brighten up and think excited thoughts and if permitted to, will jump on that person and deliver affection.

I once tried to smoke a cigarette with my coolest friend and she laughed (with kindness) and said, "You look like a kid dressed up in her mother's heels."

I can't wear leather because I feel so sad about the cows.

I have tattoos, but they're all about compassion and inherent goodness and I never show them off.

I once got so mad at a boyfriend that I became completely unhinged and the worst thing I could think to scream at him was not an obscenity, it was, "I hope every bad thing happens to you!!!"

In other words, I curse like a kindergartener.

In high school, the guy who's locker was next to mine put up a Metallica sticker. I saw it and said, "What's Metal-icka?"

I have often said, with a sort of self-accepting self-effacement, "I am the opposite of cool."

I said this to myself just the other day. And then it hit me...the opposite of "cool" is "warm."

That's actually true! I'm warm.

I'm not sure when my quest for cool began. Probably during the tween years like most everybody else. But it ended in January of 2014. I'm the *opposite* of cool. And that actually feels pretty cool.