The Gabe Factor

In another post sometime I will tell you how my search for Patty, my 8th grade best friend who used to date Charles Christmas, led me to having a mistaken conversation with Other Patty, another Patty I went to school with that wasn't my Patty. 

The convo was fruitful. She told me what she was up to and she also confirmed that Gabe, this boy we went to school with, somehow got involved with drugs and died. I recently even talked to my aunty and cousin who knew him and his family. His death shocked everyone. 

Honestly, I can't even invision Gabe smoking a cigarette. He was cute. He was funny. He was bright. He could sing. He and some other boys were in a singing group. I remember they sang  "All My Life" by KC and JoJo at a middle school assembly. We were not good friends, but we once did a project together where we had a spirited discussion on when it's appropriate to use an acronym which, oddly enough, is a debate I've had many times over the years. Other Patty said she felt he turned to drugs because his music career didn't work out. 

I'm not sure if this is true, but the thought it might be led me to have a conversation with Lisha about how we don't express to kids the importance of having a reliable and attainable plan B. No one knows better than me how hard it is when your dream life doesn't work out. How can we prepare kids for this without crushing their goals? I say kids because this definitely isn't something you want to start considering at 20 when your back is against the wall. 

Honestly, I'm not sure doing so would even matter. Telling me I should have a solid plan B would not have caused me to stop striving towards being a writer. Like I said, I didn't know Gabe closely, but I'm sure that having a plan B would not have stopped him from singing. The hard truth is that you have to take life when it comes how it comes, prepared or not. That's pretty much a golden rule. There's no acronym for that. 

The Backup Plan

I had dinner with a girlfriend last week that I have not seen since high school. It always causes me anxiety to meet up with someone that I haven't seen in a while, but just as I'd hoped, she was just as sweet and as nice as I remember her being. Over appetizers, she updated me on her relationship and told me about she and her man's life plan. It was really impressive. It was practical, but involved room for moving and going back to school. I mean, it was really grown-up.
"Yeah, but if it doesn't work out the way I want it to, I have a backup plan." Spoiler alert: the backup plan doesn't involve him.
Upon hearing this, I have to admit, I thought that this was cold-blooded. I mean, this guy is walking a path, thinking you are fully walking it with him, yet all the while, you have a plan B that you are ready to activate at any moment.
But, upon further thought, I realized that having a backup plan, especially as a woman in the world, is smart! Being ready for the worst or for a turn of events has been a secret in the Woman Survival Kit since the beginning of time. It is only these new-age "ride or die chicks" that have made it fashionable to want to go down in flames with a man.
For example, you probably walked in on your granny back in the day putting money under the mattress or in a cookie jar when you knew for sure that she and your grandpa had a checking account.
"Every little bit counts," she would say. Only, you were too young to understand what that money counted towards. More than likely, it was just-in-case change in the event that granddaddy got laid off or ran off with a hoochie.
A more current phenom is women keeping their apartments after they move in with their partner. They keep up with the rent, even if they can't afford the utilities, just in case they have to bounce.
Even though the female backup plan is not new, we don't openly discuss it with our daughters and the young women in our lives. Unfortunately, creating a backup plan comes from learning from experience or going with a gut feeling to do so. I am seeing now that it is a good idea, not just in relationships, but in everyday life.
I wish I would have had the sense to have backup plans in my personal life. Every job I have had, I have been hopelessly devoted to. Little did I know, my employers had a backup plan for me, and many a time I have found myself out on my tush, which is not a warm, safe, or comforting place to be. If only I'd had some spare rent in my cookie jar or some ideas on where to go from the bottom, not every disaster in my life would have had to cause me to start completely over.
Lesson learned.
Here's to the three dollars I am putting aside in a Pringle's can. Today it is change, but tomorrow, it could be my livelihood.