Tuesdays (Watching Life Pass By)

On Tuesdays I drive Maddie to school. I never thought I'd be doing this again. When Chelsea turned sixteen it was one of the happiest days of my life. She could drive! She could drive herself to school. She could drive me to Athens on weekends for football games! It was great! I love each of my children for a lot of reasons but one is that they gave me about a decade-and-a-half without really having to drive anywhere. Jeremy tried to get out of it when he turned sixteen by claiming he couldn't drive a stick shift. I didn't care! I'd waited sixteen years for this moment and had driven him most everywhere for all of those years. Sticking his ass behind the wheel I said tough. And he did fine. He had perpetrated a fraud and did quite fine on the four hour drive to Athens. He did even better on the four hour drive back. Kristen would get me there in three hours. Chelsea drug it out to four-and-a-half. Then a sad day came when they all left home and I had to drive myself again. "It's a sad day when your children leave home," me mentor and friend Ben Barnes once told me, "but it's a hell-of-a-lot sadder if they ever come back." None of mine have come back ... mainly because I don't think they want to drive anymore. So this morning I was appreciating Maddie who just just turned eleven. In five more years, it'll be her ass sitting behind the wheel. About the time she leaves, Laurel will drive. The wonderful thing is that Cassidy comes next! I figure I've got another decade-and-a-half of not driving in front of me. Life is good! I'm looking forward to watching it pass by as I sit in the passenger seat.