Fleet Foxes and Growing Up

A while back, I went to a Fleet Foxes concert with my husband. We were smashed into the crowd with tons of other people, standing in a rain we were grateful to see during a horrific drought. The sky was lit with lightening and the Fleet Foxes were, as Lewis puts is, “otherworldly.” I felt super cool just being there.

Then, I looked up at the VIP box. Perched above the crowd with plenty of room to move and groove, was none other than the boy I’d had a crush on in middle school. He had married the most popular girl from middle school. She was there too, in the VIP box.

I had lived those tender years grasping at their heels. Every time I thought I’d gained some ground in the battle for “cool,” I’d look up and see those two just that far ahead of me. Now here we were again. I was enjoying a concert…they were enjoying it from the VIP box.

And everything about modern irony and poetic justice would dictate that it would be me in the VIP box. In the end, the coolest kids weren’t supposed to prevail in the long term. But life’s not like the movies, I mused to myself, sometimes the cool kids become the cool adults.

But wait.

I looked closer at the boy I’d been so mad for in middle school. Let’s just say this: I think I knew him at his peak, back in 6^th grade.

I turned and looked at my husband, who was lost somewhere in another world with the Fleet Foxes. He had a few days-worth of stubble, his hair was at the perfect length, and he was wearing one of those fabulous Gap t-shirts that fit perfectly. He looked every inch an architect, the union of aesthetic and intelligence.

Call me petty, lame, or immature; but since I’d already reverted back to my catty middle school self, I thought, “Ha! I totally win.”

Happy Birthday, Lewis. Thanks for turning out hotter than all the guys I liked in middle school.