You know when you get a new car and you become incredibly fastidiously perfectionistically nervous about it? Chips and pings and minor scratches that you can only see in a certain light (from a certain angle)? These are suddenly the stuff of nightmares. You basically hold your breath for six months — or until you get a teensy tiny dent — whichever comes first.
Being the mother of a new driver is pretty much the same thing.
We used to have a hard and fast rule that my daughter had to text me when she left place A and again when she reached place B. These succinct missives ("leaving," "here") assured that my panic attacks were as brief as possible. I can tell you exactly how many minutes it takes to get to the stable from our house. 32. At the half-hour mark, I start watching the back gate.
I've relaxed a bit in the 18+ months that she's been driving. I still watch the clock sometimes, but I stay pretty cool.
On the outside at least.
Here in Massachusetts, teen drivers aren't allowed to use their mobile phones while they're operating a vehicle. This is meant to keep them (and others) safer. It also means that any call that comes in while she's supposed to be behind the wheel is probably not good news. We had one such call last year. She was driving home through the neighboring town and — after pulling over, good girl — called to say the car was making a terrible noise. Luckily, I was home and able to rescue her. 'Turns out she had been driving on a flat tire. By the time she parked and I arrived, it was shredded beyond repair.
"I'm soooo sorry," she moaned when I showed her the source of the mystery noise.
Not a big deal, I assured her. "It's a thing, not a person." Her father replaced the tire on his way home from work and with only a minor hassle of car-juggling, it was back and on the road (with new tires) in short order.
After that first call, I actually breathed a sigh of relief. If she was going to have an on-road crisis — and we all have them sooner or later — this was a fairly benign one, right?
Fast-forward a year or so, and I was in the kitchen starting dinner when I got a text from her. "Leaving," she wrote. I smiled and didn't think much of it. Until about ten minutes later when the phone rang and caller ID told me who the caller was.
"I'm at Endicott," she told me (that's a local college). "I got rear-ended."
Breathe, I reminded myself. She's obviously alive and conscious and must still have at least one or two of her fingers or she couldn't have hit "Mom" on the speed dial.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, but the car is really bad."
"Okay, but you're all right. Is the other driver all right?"
"Yes, she's here. She's very nice."
"Okay, there are things you have to do now. You have to exchange licenses and registration and insurance and ... here's your father." I gave the phone to my husband, my hand shaking, grateful he was there to take over.
My daughter was right, the other driver was very nice. When she called a few minutes later to talk to us, she explained that it was "only a tap." But, given that my daughter was driving a Miata (my Miata, my first car, my bright red baby, 24-years-old and perfectly maintained) and the other driver was in a bigger, heavier vehicle, well ... there's no such thing as a "tap." The rear of my adorable sportscar was crumpled like an accordion.
"I'm sooooooo sorry," my daughter moaned about a half an hour later when she and what was left of the Miata arrived home. We could tell she'd been crying.
"It's a thing, not a person," I told her, hugging her tight. "It's okay. It's totally okay."
'Turns out it was totally totaled. In the face-off between damage and book value, 24-year-old cars don't usually win.
But, my enterprising husband has a plan. He's found pristine Miatas like ours listed at higher-than-book-value prices. He's found secondary market parts and body panels. He's found a mechanic a few towns over who is an expert in "antique" Miatas. My bright red baby will ride again. It may just be a while.
And, I'm all right with that. Because I have my real baby.
And she's totally okay.
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
I'm a worrier. My friends, family and especially my husband will tell you that's an almost laughable understatement. In the best of times, I lie awake in the wee hours of the morning, worrying about how I will manage to do all the wonderful things I've committed to doing. In the worst of times, the worrying extends both earlier and later, and I've been known to sleep not at all.
When you have a baby, there are exponentially more things to worry about. For some mothers, the anxiety starts before the offspring even arrives. I was surprisingly serene during my pregnancy despite the death of my dad and twenty weeks of all-day morning sickness. I think I somehow knew that my balanced well-being would benefit my baby. There were plenty of sleepless nights at the end, but that was more from swollen ankles and a bulging belly than nerves.
As mothers, we have to push our worries aside or we can't function at all. Let's face it, the world is a very scary place — as we are reminded every single night on network news. Abductions. School shootings. Hit and run drivers. Children-in-peril stories are constantly in the headlines. Here in the Boston area, we've had months of Baby Jane Doe, now known as Baby Bella, the poor little toddler whose body was left on a harbor island beach.
Popular culture doesn't help either. Besides the more realistic dramas like CSI, there are Zombie Apocalypses, Blood-Sucking Vampires, Sorority Serial Killers and even Shark Tornadoes. Now, do I really think that a vampire-zombie-shark is going to attack my daughter and her sorority sisters? No. But, still the atmosphere of doom and gloom, and reason to worry is palpable.
Of course, the less special effect-y worries started early. At just three days old, my daughter had an eye infection. ("I'm a horrible mother," I wailed.) A year or so later, we woke up to what sounded like a dog barking in her bedroom, and I ended up spending a good portion of the night with her out on our porch, wrapped in down comforters. Again, croup isn't exactly the stuff that horror films are made of, but it was horrible enough for me.
We've had it pretty easy, actually. Despite my daughter's predilection for jumping over logs on the back of a horse, we've had no broken bones yet and only a couple of "possible" concussions. She either failed or passed the concussion test by so slim a margin that the results were inconclusive.
These days, I worry less about equestrian accidents and more about my daughter's newfound — and much cherished — autonomy. She drives (carefully and with her phone on airplane mode, so she says) and she goes to concerts with friends out-of-town or even out-of-state. She stays up (and sometimes out) much later than I do. She has a whole life that I'm not a part of.
And, if I think too much about it, I'm going to worry myself to death.
So, I try not to. I remember my own adventures at eighteen. (Eighteen? OMG.) I think about the world and the odds and the fact that most people are good and kind and would help a couple of teenagers if their car broke down or they lost their wallets or ... or ... or ...
Mostly, I try not to think about it.
Having a child is the greatest act of faith you can commit. As Elizabeth Stone famously said, "It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
I've learned to count on my daughter's intelligence and good judgement. And I have to believe that the world is essentially a benign and benevolent place (zombies and vampires and flying sharks aside). I try not to lose too much sleep. Well, no more than I would lose otherwise.
Motherhood used to be a matter of vigilance. Now, I guess it's a matter of trust.
If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.
