Leave it to a kid to teach me a thing or two about being cool.

I've recently had a 'falling out' with a friend of mine and since have been a little down. It brought back all those pesky self doubt and internal hatred feelings for a visit and, though I know it is her loss, I was feeling a bit blue in recent days. I never really hit the depression stage, I'm over the self loathing that comes with being a lesbian, but I was certainly bummed that someone I thought of as a friend viewed me as someone unworthy of being anywhere near her family. Then I spent some time with our nephew Tristan who will be 7 in a few days. He reminded me there are more important things in life, like Matchbox cars!

It was Saturday night when we headed to Jen's parents house for dinner in the newly renovated kitchen. We haven't been over for dinner in a while because the kitchen has been torn apart in one form or another since we returned from vacation in Vermont back in July. Upon entering the house Tristan was, as tends to be the norm since his baby brother's arrival, getting yelled at for not paying attention. Jen and I sat down to dinner with her mom while Tristan finished watching a movie in his Mom and Dad's bedroom, they recently closed on a house and will be moving out soon. He eventually emerged from the bedroom and wandered down the hall to see what the adults of the house were up to. By this time baby brother Scott was now awake and in need of attention, which he was getting from Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Jenny all at once. Tristan looked bummed, until recently he was the center of attention most of the time and had been his entire life. When baby brother Scott came along in October he quickly learned that not only would the attention no longer be solely focused on him, babies are cute and cuddly and the adults in his life generally want to spend time around them.

As I sat there being bummed about my own situation and trying to put on a brave face so nobody realized something was wrong it dawned on me that Tristan had the same look of loneliness and sadness on his face I had seen in the mirror so many times. I thought for a moment about what to do, it was dark out by now so playing outside was out of the question. The house isn't big enough for much indoor play, and somehow I doubted reading a book together was quite the attention he needed right now. Then I had an idea, the hallway is hardwood flooring and Tristan loves to race his collection of Matchbox and Hotwheels cars (he has hundreds of them). So I asked ... his face lit up when I offered to play with him and he ran to his collection to pick out his favorite cars. He was even more delighted when I asked him to pick me out three "really cool ones" to play with. He ran down the hall, hit his knees for a slide to the end, and laid on his tummy facing me. Before I could get in position he was already zooming cars down the 'track' toward me and I chased down a few before finding my spot on the floor at the opposite end of the hall from Tristan.

The next hour and a half was spent crashing cars into one another, bouncing them off the walls and into top spins, and jumping them onto some extra door trim that was piled along one wall of the hall. We even traded ends of the hall so that Tristan had a better angle on 'the jump' and could get in some better tricks. He was in heaven! He was getting attention, he was playing a game he loves, and he had someone to play it with for a change. As I laid on the floor playing with my nephew it dawned on me, this is what life should be about. Who cares if some adult thinks I'm cool for a friend but not cool enough to meet her family. Who cares if she can't see past the fact that I am a lesbian and look at me as a whole person. Spending time with a child, one who needed a friend at that point in time, and watching the joy on his face when I offered to be that friend is all I need out of life. For about two hours last Saturday night I was the coolest kid Tristan knew and I was willing to play with him. I think there will be more hallway race track events to come in our future.