cool

Dr. Phil says everybody has a personal truth.  A personal truth is what you believe about yourself when nobody's listening and nobody is watching.

I can't remember the first time I knew I wasn't cool.  Maybe when I was around 7 and the cute little neighbor boy said he wanted to play with anyone but me.  Maybe when I was in high school and most of the cool girls were on the basketball team and got to ride the sports bus with the boys.  I couldn't dribble a ball to save my life.  Maybe it sunk in during college when the cool kids went dancing all hours of the night in D.C. clubs.  During the week they would laugh at first timers who had no rhythm. I shuddered to think what they would say if they saw me try to dance.  And then as an adult while my friends would share stories of operating room adventures or elementary teaching trials, no one understood my excitement over planning a creative communion service or how I loved hunting for grace in the Old Testament.  I have always had the most wonderful, super coolest friends.  Beautiful, talented, interesting people I wanted to be more like in so many ways.  But my personal truth of my uncoolness was reinforced all too regularly.

Then in the least cool move possible, at the end of my thirties, I exploded my life.  Total destruction.  I spent the next couple years swimming up from the abyss through miles of shame and regret.  I spent the next couple years in a counselor's office and in Clinical Pastor Education, (chaplain training) which is basically therapy on speed.  Where I was constantly asked questions like "What are your personal truths?"  And "How is that working for you?"

That is where I realized, among other things, that I had lived the last 40 plus years with the belief that I was not cool.   I had never realized it out loud before.  But it made sense.  I shared my epiphany with Steve, who had the nicest answer.  He said "It's hard for me to believe that is one of your core issues, since you are one of the coolest people I know."  I told him that was a sweet thing to say.  And then blew him off.  Because it's so obvious that I have never been thin enough, fashiony enough, techy enough, or arty enough to be cool no matter how much I wanted to be.

You know how people will say "so and so looks like an artist" because of their colorful hair or funky outfits?  I'm pretty sure I look exactly like a hospice chaplain with a closet full of comfortable shoes and black sweaters.  I download sermons to listen to for fun.  I love washing my car.  The most exciting thing I can imagine is to crawl into a hot bath with a new magazine.  So it's hopeless.

Over the last five years I have learned so much about myself.  I've made hundreds of amends, trained in a new path of ministry, learned to be curious and kind with the dark spots on my soul, made new friends, learned new ways of thinking and seeing myself and the world.  And often am still quite a dork....

Last week I was making fun of myself for doing something dumb.  Steve laughed with me and then said again what he had said three years ago.  "You are one of the coolest people I know."  Except this time I heard it.  I heard it from a guy whose tastes and opinions I value so highly.  This time I believed him.  His simple phrase delighted me.  And for a split second I saw myself through his eyes.

A girl who hammered nails in an orphanage wall in the jungles of Honduras, hiked through castle ruins in Scotland and swam in the dead sea in Israel.

A girl who is equally happy with Barclay's commentary on Luke, and US Weekly celebrity edition.

A girl with crazy amounts of courage and compassion.

A girl who completed every obstacle in the Tough Mudder but can't program the radio in her car.

A girl who cracks herself up with her own silly jokes, closes her eyes during scary movies and reads the ends of books first.

A girl who loves her family and friends ferociously.  A girl who is learning and growing and trying....

In that split second I wondered "who says she isn't cool?" and "why I have I been so mean to her for the last 44 years?"  And just like that a life time quest for coolness, and a negative personal truth evaporated.  POOF.  Gone. It just didn't seem to carry any importance or weight to me any more.

Shauna Niequest, in her book Bread and Wine writes "sometimes God helps us work out our crazy through struggle and loss, and sometimes he helps us work it out through truth telling and vulnerability - and sometimes he just uses comedy."

Today I turn 45.  Almost 50.  Half of 90. Ouch....  Maybe the comedy is that it took me to the age of reading glasses and earlier bed times to finally stop measuring and judging and wishing.  And finally be content to just be me - whatever temperature that might be.