Things My Teenager Says: The Invisible Break
My teenager doesn't know, until I tell him, that he's sitting behind the wheel of the car I drove while I was pregnant with him.
"This was your mom car?" he asks.
"My mini van."
How could I know back then that I'd never trade up for a bigger vehicle? That no matter how hard we tried, there would never be a need to give up this beautiful thing with a sports car's engine and sleek lines and roomy interior and leather seats, for something more practical and less appealing to the eye.
Yes, this car that protected and helped raise my baby has become my baby, too.
Just as we've taken care of "Bessie" (her name, because she's been paid for for over a decade and was designed to never let us down)–to the point that mechanics who work on her try to make deals with us every time we take her in, because they want to buy and keep her for themselves–we've nurtured him, so that we could reach this amazing moment and beyond.
"Stop pressing the invisible break, Mom." He's laughing at how tense I am as he prepares to take another lap around the neighborhood. "I'm not going to wreck the car."
No matter how hard I try to relax, the need to hold on and slow things down is at its worst when we near stop signs and drive by the countless cars parked at the curb. Especially at the blind, uphill turns that oncoming traffic flocks to most while my boy drives by, slowly, but not as slowly as yesterday, because he's getting the hang of this so quickly. Too quickly.
He doesn't know that my reaction has very little to do with worrying about my precious Bessie.
Well, almost nothing.
Yes, this driving practice thing is hard for every parent.
But the panic I feel when he veers too close to mailboxes or speeds up when some well-intentioned but harried driver rides his bumper… None of it is invisible-break inducing.
Not even close.
He doesn't know that I'm remembering the long drive in this car to the hospital, me in the passenger seat then, too, when I was in labor. Bringing him home three days later, the car seat was installed for the first time with him carefully strapped inside, and a new life was pushing us into an adventure we couldn't fathom. The picture of a stork holding a baby in a blue blanket was waiting for us that day, staked into the front lawn right by where I park at the curb now, so he doesn't have to pull out of the driveway yet.
He doesn't remember all the times that I talked and sang and cried with him when he couldn't stand the rear-facing position of that car seat and screamed to be turned around so he could see the world racing toward him. He doesn't remember climbing into the back one Mother's Day and presenting me with a hand-made craft project, complete with a crayon colored card (attached by curling ribbon) that I immediately hung over my rear view mirror, where it still swings today, faded and crinkled and incandescently beautiful. He brushes it aside each time he adjusts the mirror to his taller height, the way I've shown him to before he pulls away from our home.
He thinks I'm holding onto the dashboard, when it's the past I don't want to turn lose. He thinks it's the car I wish I could slow down, when it's the pace of this letting go that's driving me to break time into its smallest pieces and hold every memory close again for every second I can.
Every fast food dinner on the way to practice and every laugh about school and each song on the radio we both loved and the hard talks we've had, because that turns out to be easier sometimes, with the distance of him in the back and me in the front softening the blow… All these pieces and more are part of us and Bessie. Part of the emotion of these drives for me, and how badly I want to slam that invisible break pedal to the floor and slow it all down.
Every time someone marvels at how carefully we've kept up her interior and exterior and engine, it mystifies me. Because she's everything. Everything we've done and loved and experienced and endured together for 16 years in this car is worth the extreme care we've taken with her.
But how could I know, all those hundreds of thousands of times that I held his hand on the way to this car, just how quickly this would come?
Yet somehow, I did.
This responsibility of teaching him and encouraging him and smiling at him while I help him learn how to drive away from us has been my every reality with him. It's been the biggest part of us, inching closer with each new adventure we've shared.
I don't think I'm ready for any of it to end. But he does. So we drive, him taking the wheel. And I relax my grip. I inch my foot back.
My reward? My teenager's practically bursting with pride on these drives at the freedom racing toward him.
He doesn't know how long this journey has really been, or how hard it is to finally be here, or how very carefully I've soaked in all the moments of his childhood as they've rolled by and disappeared from view. And I'm glad.
He doesn't know anything but the wonderful places he's going, in this special car and beyond. It's my most prized possession, that blind, unquestioning sense of acceptance and approval he feels. Even as I tell myself I have to let it, and him, go.
"How about we get some ice cream?" I say, surprising him, pushing him, because he doesn't know he's ready.
But I do. So he drives out of the neighborhood for the first time, his grip knuckle-white on Bessie's wheel, heading for his favorite boyhood treat, this time as a young man in charge of his destination.
"You can do this." I smile for both him and myself. "Don't ride the breaks, honey. Accelerate. Don't worry about what's behind you. Just follow the road ahead."
I can't help it. I'm clinging to Bessie's armrest.
"It's okay, Mom," my other baby says. That amazing, blind confidence is back. That easy laughter, usually at my expense, that calms him down.
Then he presses the gas, and we're on our way…
