Cool, by Gillian

Back in the hippie days, when it was cool to be cool, I was not cool. The cool years found me married - not cool, too traditional: raising four step-children - not particularly cool: working endless overtime hours - certainly not cool, for a major international corporation - just about as uncool as you could get.

No. I completely missed out on cool. Or it missed me.

The only time I remember anyone using the adjective about me was some incident when I came upon my oldest step-son and some buddies in the throes of one of his many transgressions, they were so numerous and varied that I don't recall exactly what he was into that particular time. But I do remember him shrugging and saying to his companions, "It's OK. Gill's cool."

By which he meant, of course, that I was not going to go off into some unfathomable (at least to him) rage over the smoking or drinking or sex or whatever it was; most likely all three and then some. That was exactly what his father would have done, whereas I would prefer to attempt a calm discussion. By comparison I guess I was pretty cool. But that was a slightly different use of the expression. I was never to be a cool dude or a cool cat.

These days, the term seems to have made a comeback - rather too much of one as it pops up incessantly. One particular example has rather amused me. I have been asked a few times recently, what Betsy's relationship is to me. (As I very recently went on a bit of a rave about this very topic I won't say much here, but honestly! Of what significance is the exact nature of our relationship to a window salesperson and a colonoscopy receptionist??) Where was I? Oh yeah.  When I reply that Betsy is my spouse the response seems inevitably to be, 'cool!' which I find unobjectionable but nevertheless a little odd. When I was with a man and had some cause to state that he was my husband, no-one ever found that to be cool. But I mulled it over and decided it was rather sweet. People feel the need to say something positive in response. OK. Cool.

But then, when this topic came up for today, I realized that actually I had very little knowledge of what it is supposed to mean, these days. I turned to urbandictionary.com which informed me that cool is, among other things, and I quote, '... a word to say when you don't know what else to say .....'

And that, in my book, if you're talking about my marriage, is pretty un-damn-cool!

© 16 May 2016 

About the Author 

 I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.