Driving

Golda finally got her driver license.  She is 17, a senior.  There were a lot of reasons she didn't get her license until now.  First, apprehension.  Then school conflicts, then general high school busyness.  There were a lot of priorities, and some of them were tied to grades and some of them weren't things we could control, and none of them had anything to do with finishing that simple 9-day drivers ed course.  But finally, it was done, and now Golda is driving herself and Ruby to school, driving herself to ballet, leaving the house for church meetings and study sessions and to hang out with friends.

I know it gives Scott and me a lot of freedom.  In fact, I have already taken on three extra violin students because not driving Golda has freed up so much of my time.  Another benefit is that I love to see Golda enjoy her freedom and independence.

And yet, part of me is kinda depressed about this new phase.  I feel discouraged facing the prospect of my heart beating wildly every time one of my kids drives, for the next 40 years.  Sometimes when I think about Golda on the road, my stomach lurches up into my head and I think of all the things that could happen.  All the bad things.  It's like this new level of a video game that I don't yet have the skills for.  Yes, I'll get used to the idea of Golda driving, but then Ruby will get her license, then Araceli will get her license, and so on.  I'll be training new drivers for the next 14 years!  Yesterday I drove around for several hours in the passenger seat with Ruby.  I'm not a good passenger.  I'm a good driver.  Being a passenger is scary and boring and uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, all at the same time.

That's the other part of my reticence.  For some mothers, feeding their children satisfies their maternal instinct.  Rocking them, singing to them, teaching them to clean bathrooms, reading scriptures with them, painstakingly sounding out words as they learn to read.  I do all of those things, but what I really love is to drive them around.  I love when I drop them off in the ballet alley, pick them up at school, run them to a meeting, drive them to Salt Lake for a lesson.  I love waiting in the car for them during guitar or orchestra or anything they want to do, I love dropping everything when they call for a ride home from Dance Company, or when they're sick at school or when they forgot an assignment.  I love that as their mom, I get to be the one to hop in the car and take the forgotten paper or book to the school.  It's probably like the feeling some moms get from cooking a nutritious breakfast for their little ones before they go out into the world.  That feeling that you're providing for your brood.  I just feel my motherhood most keenly when I'm getting them to the important places they go.  I love the feeling of making it all flow.  I have always felt the most refuge in the car, everyone safely buckled in, the world at our feet.  When Golda and Ruby were tiny, I remember the feeling of relief at getting out of the house and having them buckled in their carseats, unable to escape or make too big of a mess.  Ah, freedom!  Now, even if we're just going to ballet, we COULD go anywhere we wanted, and we're all in it together, whether we like it or not.

I suppose that's why it's bittersweet to see the first of them drive away.  I know it's great, but it just feels like the beginning of the end.  Every time that Cadillac chugs up the street, I close my eyes and pray that they will come home safely, alive, that it won't be their destiny to be mangled in some car crash.  Not what I pictured when I signed up for parenting.  But...here we go.  Buckle up.