Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Radical Eyesight


The deal was finish camp and he could get a mohawk for the last two weeks of summer. Come the day after Labor day the whole thing will be taken down to a buzz cut so he can return to school looking presentable and mainstream. In the meantime he gets to be hardcore (or as hardcore as you can be at 6 in the suburbs!)


A friend of mine said I was the most "radical" parent she's ever met. Again, being a radical parent to 6 and 9 year olds in the suburbs isn't necessarily saying much but hearing it made me feel really good.


Lima Bean with an end of the summer mohawk

See, I was always a bit of a geek and always outside of both the mainstream and the cool. I was somewhere else that wasn't the in-crowd but it wasn't counter-culture coolness either. So, to have someone see that in me now (at 36!?!) is really really cool for me. A dream come true, as it were, for the 16 year-old-girl-I-was who still lives inside my heart.


That'd be why this interview that Christine over at BlissChick did was so rewarding. She makes me seem very cool. Friends would argue that I am cool but I still don't recognize it; I still see myself through the eyes of that 16 year old that I was - the one on the outside of everything.


Retraining myself to see the the eyes of now is a constant practice. And to keep myself occupied until the lessons stick I shave my kid's head! Life is good.


Where do you see yourself through the eyes of your inner teenager? Where would it be gratifying to see yourself through the eyes of the you of today?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Deborah -- what an INTERESTING question about the eyes of our teenage selves!?!? What an interesting and also frightening question, indeed. When I was 18, I was convinced that my life would look radically different than it has ended up looking...would that teenager understand; would I feel like I have a lot of explaining to do? Lots of fodder here for the journal! ha.

Anonymous said...

For Jake--you look awesome!