Be Cool

I’m sitting with my son at a restaurant and I so badly want to tell him about all the beauty in life—all the wonderful moments he’ll have that I hope so badly he internalizes and enjoys. Sometimes we can talk this way but I have learned not to push it because if I go one step too far, he’ll roll his eyes and tell me to stop being so embarrassing and tedious, just like I might have done with my father.

And the thing is, he’s not wrong.

He doesn’t want to hear all that, that’s my life, my experiences and joys and burdens, not his. He’s right that the world is his, that his life is his, that I’m dishing spoilers and he deserves to let it unfold before him—to explore and figure it out for himself.

But now, he tells me about his day. And it takes everything I have to not overdo it, and just fucking be cool.