Gil and I have this thing with driving. He gets behind the wheel–where I have asked him to be–and I’m immediately tense. Suddenly I’m like a mother with her teenage son, painfully aware of the almost five-year difference in our driving experience (which doesn’t reflect our age difference; he grew up and graduated highschool in a country in which he didn’t have the paperwork to legally drive).
It’s one of our less graceful areas. There’s nothing like near collisions (mostly imagined) to test a relationship. But with every trip I build a little more confidence in his driving ability, and on every trip he extends grace to me once again for my passenger-seat driving.
Not unlike the rest of our relationship, and not unlike this life in general, it’s a messy process; but I think it’s a good road we’re on.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Good thought
January 20th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I was the mother with the teenage son.
He learned to drive in the city that Mario Andretti refuses to drive in. Bless you.