Today Pryor, my almost-seven-year-old, came home and promptly told me that he would be taking his Nintendo DS on the schoolbus with him from now on. "Um, nope!" I said and turned his attention back to his homework. "But mooooo-oooom...Gabe gets to bring his on the bus and he said that I should do it too! I won't be cool unless I bring mine on the bus too!"
Ugh. This is the second "Gabe-ism" that I've heard in the past week. Last Monday, Pryor told me that he wanted a skeleton sweatshirt. That glowed in the dark. From Old Navy. After I got over the initial shock that my fashion-oblivious oldest son was making his first steps toward first-grade couture, I realized that there had to be something else going on. "Really? Who has one that you've seen?"
"Gabe. He says they're the coolest and I need to get one."
I am sure by next week Pryor will need to get a pet Iguana or bring an Ipad on the bus to stay "cool" with Gabe.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Gabe. I have never even met him. I'm sure he's a great kid. But he reminds me of all the people I have tried so hard to impress and failed, and it makes me want to protect my oldest from going through what I did, to skip ahead with the lesson learned.
I remember begging my mom to buy me a pair of high-top sneakers at the start of third grade (it WAS the 80's...). It was painfully obvious with my sports ability that even in the third grade that those high-tops weren't going anywhere near a basketball court, but I thought I was so COOL! I went over to my best friend's house the minute I got home. I was so happy, thinking that mine were like hers and wanting so much to fit in. Her much-older brother walked by with his friends and said "generic" and they all laughed. I had no idea what that word meant at the time, but I knew that it was painfully uncool. And I had to explain to my mom how the sneakers "hurt my feet" and why never came out of the box again.
There's so many of those moments: trying to fit in at the "cool" lunch table in high school and being told that no one at the table liked me, staying up late in my dorm room waiting for the guy to call and ask me to the formal only to have a sorority sister tell me that he just called HER and wasn't that so exciting, not getting the call back from the interview that I knew I had "aced."
I still do battle with my own versions of "Gabe." There are definitely days when I am painfully uncool. There are moments that despite my best intentions I look like a complete dork. Always someone, somewhere implying that if I just did this, if I just wore that, if I just acted like "her"--I would be accepted, loved, respected, admired. And most days, I have to admit, I am my own worst Gabe. The person who's most likely to make me feel uncool is...me.
Looking back, I see that getting bumped from the lunch table forced me to make friends with people I might have not met otherwise, girls who are still great friends today. If that guy had called and asked me to the formal, I might not have gone on the blind date with the man who became my husband. If I had gotten the job, I would have missed the opportunity to land the career I have always wanted.
So, I will listen to my seven-year-old's daily changing definition of coolness with
a smile. I will not roll my eyes and groan each time my son says "Gabe told me..." And I will be thankful for the moments of wrong turns that have turned out to be right ones. Moments of perfection in the chaos.
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