THE BACK SEAT

It began many, many years ago in the back seat of a Chevrolet Suburban……….. NOT what you’re thinking!
It was my girlfriend and me back there and our husbands up front.
We liked it that way.
It was a big vehicle and we were kinda far back.
Far enough with music playing from the radio and two men conversing and laughing up front that they couldn’t hear any of the whispers going on in the back.

We were young and had 8 kids between the two of us, they were all the same ages and went to the same schools.
We lived one house away from each other.
We were moms and wives all week but on the week-ends, in the back seat of “Brown”, the name of the Suburban, we were dreamers.

We were girls, dreaming and whispering how we wish things were, just pretend mind you.

We were all about our husbands and our kids, but on week-end nights, in Brown, we had one question we pondered often in that back seat…when was it gonna be our turn?
Seems we gave all we had each day to everyone but ourselves.
All we wanted to know was, WHEN was it gonna be our turn?

We were both 19 when we married.
Maybe some 19 year olds know what they want from life but for sure we didn’t. And then, baby after baby after baby.

And there we were, two women thirty something in the back seat now knowing what we wished we knew back then and yep, wondering ….when IS it our turn?

I can’t tell you all our secrets but I can tell you that two wishes did come true.

She wanted a man with goals, anything, just some sort of goals.
Me? I just wanted to know what love was. I wanted to feel what love songs sang about and romantic novels told about.

Years later, both of our marriages fell apart.

Eventually my girlfriend found a man with goals and was ecstatic. Only thing was, this guy never stopped. He jumped from one goal to another with no rest in between.
Possibly she should have fine-tuned that dream a little bit, maybe little breaks here and there?

Me? I know what love is, even better than the love songs and romantic novels. Wonder if it would have hurt to have wished for my prince to be Onasis rich?

We didn’t just dream on week-ends in Brown. We also solved problems.
You can imagine all the headaches we dealt with day after day with eight kids.
I think the most valuable thing my girlfriend taught me was that all the crap my girls did was not really aimed at ME.
So many times I wanted to know, “how could they do this to ME?”
She helped me understand it wasn’t at ME, they didn’t do what they did to get at me, just kids not thinkin’, doin’ what they do.
I’m not sure I would have ever arrived at that without her, and it changed my perspective on all their crap.
And even though I knew nothing about boys, other than the ones that buzzed around the front of our house on their bikes everyday, kinda like dogs in heat…still I was able to shed some light now and then on something her boys did or, at least say something crazy enough about it that made us both laugh.

Yep, we did lots of laughing in the back of Brown all those years.
That’s how we dealt with a lot of what was happening in our lives, we laughed at it.
We laughed hard and long, sometimes folded over in laughter, gasping for air.
To this day, we still laugh like that when we have our girlfriend visits….but that’s another story!

Our friendship began when our youngests were in strollers and being neighbors ended when they were in high school.
And through all those years, we sat in the back seat of Brown, whispered, dreamed and laughed our problems away.

We still were wondering, when was it our turn when we waved good bye and my family headed for California.

Year after year our girlfriend visits continued; through rough times, kinda easy times, happy and sad times.
We met at different destinations and brought with us things we needed help with. We’d share, cry, solve and laugh.

I don’t know exactly when, but it happened one year.
We hooked up somewhere wonderful, Phoenix I think.
We stayed at a SPA and treated ourselves to pure luxury for 3 or 4 days.
We were sharing dinner, klinking our wine glasses to a toast when we realized…..we made it!
We were in OUR TURN!

We’ve been in our turn for a long time now.
When we come together, we speak quickly of our families to just keep updated; jobs, marriages, kids, divorces.
None of them were ever in jail, they all have jobs and they all pay taxes.
They turned out, for the most part to be a bunch we’re proud of.
We don’t cry anymore.
We still have stuff that bothers us now and then but we have something now we didn’t have then…..WISDOM!
We still laugh when we’re together, still hard enough to split a side and gasp for air.

Yuma, Arizona is sometimes our meeting spot, it’s a 3-hour drive for each of us.

We had a Yuma visit just a few weeks ago.

This time we each had something we needed to talk about, something was bothering us both.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere we each felt kinda left behind, kinda like we didn’t matter anymore, our importance had dwindled.
We needed to put this somewhere, to accept.

Between our accumulated wisdom and a great tasting bottle of wine, it hit us.

Our kids are now way older than we were when our friendship began.
They’re all busy with their own lives, some of them are even grandparents for crap sake!
We just aren’t the middle of their universe anymore, still a part… just not so important….kinda like we aren’t in the driver’s seat anymore.

At that moment, the lightning bolt hit, nope, we’re not in the driver’s seat…..we’re in THE BACK SEAT!

We’re back in the back seat right smack where we started.

Well, this time it’s a bit of a different back seat.

We put our imaginations together and created our back seat…….

First, it isn’t a Suburban we’re in and husband’s aren’t driving.
We’re in a lovely limo and our driver is up front minding his own business.
Our backseat is velvety plush and way more comfortable than our favorite TV watchin’ chairs.
Music at our fingertips, anything we feel like listening to and of course the greatest Bloody Mary’s and wine possible and a bowl full of M & M’s with Peanuts.
We can kick off our shoes, put our feet up and talk all day as we drive along the Pacific Coast.
We have no problems to worry about, after all….we’re in our turn!
And we laugh…..oh how we laugh.

This week somewhere on Facebook, I read a little statement by a man I don’t know. He said all of a sudden he was feeling used up, kinda like he’s lost all his importance, kinda like he doesn’t matter anymore and now what?

I want to tell him to jump in the back seat and just enjoy the ride.