Good morning! Weather is heating up in the northeast...time to pull out the towels to mop the brow. We had a fantastic weekend with the preparations and actual christening for Cupcake and Father's Day. I will definitely post a photo of the stylin' and oh so cool Cupcake. She has her shades, hair bow, tutu, and tee shirt with a cupcake on it. Now that is a very cool kid. Naturally, she does not know it yet, but I do see some traits of coolness....which leads to the hot question.....are people born "cool" or do they develop it over time by honing their coolness? And the never answered question: "Who determines coolness?"
And so, are people born cool or develop coolness? Except for Cupcake, I believe that people develop their coolness. First, let's define it. What is cool? Cool is something that insecure people aspire to because they think that that is the road to acceptance in society.
At my age, I say: "Who cares?" BUT when I was in high school and college, I did care. As someone who played on the tennis team, was in the National Honor Society and in the musicals during high school, I had an identity crisis. Athletes are not on stage. Members of the chorus are not coordinated. I was an enigma. Moreover, I was clueless as to who I actually was. Therefore, to say that I was remotely cool, was saying that the sun is cool....it's not, nor was I. Additionally, since I was tall, my knee socks never made it to my knees so they were more like calf socks (definitely not cool) and my feet were longer than a pontoon boat in black and white saddle shoes. Just the visualization was "yikes!" To this day, I will never understand how I made it out of the house with purple eye shadow and white lip stick on. Come on, Ma, why didn't you lock me in my room? Sheesh!
On to the question is coolness developed or are people born with it?. OK, now that you know my past, you know that my kids were not born cool.
I remember Buddy saying to me during the years when he was bullied: "If I had a beach house, all of my problems would be over!" A beach house indeed...your problems would be over, but mine would just be beginning. Running two households miles a part is not simple for a parent to do just to make sure that her son was cool and problem free. In fact, the problems that would have developed with a beach house would have been huge...like trying to pay two mortgages and run around the country playing baseball and trying out for college teams would not have happened since the money tree would be growing in the back of the beach house. In fact, by not having a beach house, his problems were over and we had the resources to develop his baseball skills.
Now that the kid is in college, I have to say, he developed his coolness. On a scale of 1-10, he sits around an "8". Sparky says that he is a bit of LL Bean whereas his cousin is more "GQ." I'll go with that....
On a number occasions in college, he was asked for his autograph, to take a photo with him, and he is applauded when he walks into a room or party after a game. Now, my friends, that is cool.
Growing up, the insecure, beach house-less kid did not understand that once he was comfortable in his own skin, the coolness would emerge. "Cause, let's be real, the real definition of cool, is "Being your self and being happy about it without caring what other people think." It's taken years to figure it out, but I now realize that we should not worry about what others think, because we cannot control it. Let it go and focus on being the best person that you can be...now that is COOL!
Have a cool day!
PS: Paul McCartney is 70 years old today...he is and always will be (even with new hips and knees) cool!
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