Independence

Remember your first car?  Of course you do.  I remember mine.

 

My first car was a 1983 Nissan Sentra, 2 door, 5 speed, power nothing/manual everything with absolutely no frills and I loved it.  I formally “bought” it in 1987 from my Dad when, after 2 years of my “borrowing” it, he realized that it really wasn’t his anymore and, if he was honest, never had been.  He bought it the year I turned 15 and by the next year we were inseparable -  that car and me.

 

If cars could talk… oh I would be in trouble.  Well, not really, I am 40 after all, so who’s going to fuss at this late date…. but the things I did, the places I went, the miles I travelled, the music I played, the friends I took with me.  Memories by the dozens.

 

That car carried me everywhere I wanted and needed to go, and many places I didn’t… until 1993 when a school bus full of children ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of my husband.  By then it had well over 235,000 miles, a broken passenger window and cracks in the pseudo leather seats.  But I loved it.

 

Many vehicles have come and gone since then -  some I liked some I didn’t, some were fun, some functional, some large, some small, some ugly, some cute – but it’s like your first love, you never forget that first car and it always has a special place in your heart.

My firstborn son, Ethan, is the sole owner of his very first car.  It’s not flashy, it’s not fancy, the bells and whistles are few and may not actually exist.  The windows are manual, it’s a 4-cylinder automatic, the miles are pretty high and there isn’t even a radio.  But it’s his….

 

I don’t need, or want, to know everywhere they go or everything they do…

 

I just want to know that his heart gives a leap of excitement and trepidation when he gets behind the wheel,

 

that he feels a new sense of self-confidence and independence at this first flight out of the nest,

 

pray that it will carry him safely through all of his adventures,

 

and hope that he’ll want want to take me along every so often.