Back Seat Driver

It was a given that, sooner or later, at least one post would have to have a title that referenced back seat drivers. Or in this case, driver. In fact, my daughter has been known to sit in the back seat voluntarily partly out of the habit of youth (she was really too small for most of her life to sit in the front), and partly out of avoidance I think (she sometimes would rather not have a conversation--particularly on her way to the skate rink after school--and the distance from front to back, she surmised, would discourage conversation) Plus, as the youngest in the family she was often delegated to the back seat.


But she does like to give directions. And commentary. And express her opinion. And it isn't limited to her seating location in the car. The other day I was just trying to make some conversation that might take my mind off of how grumpy I was about the hot and humid weather. So I started chatting with her about the idea of getting a tattoo (me, not her); I thought she might find this an amusing conversation. "Mom," she said with a clipped "you've-got-to-be-kidding-me" tone, "if you got a tattoo that would just  be further proof that you are going through a serious mid-life crisis."  (To be fair, she has a point.)  But do I really listen to my daughter about what kind of clothes I should wear ("please don't pick me up looking like a hobo"), or the way I spend my money, or when or where I can cry, or if I talk to strangers on the the parking lot of the Seaward coop? None of these expressions of love veiled as criticisms or embarrassments do I really mind when I think about it (sometimes in the moment I feel exasperated), for I know that my daughter is really sensitive and caring. But, like me, she sometimes likes to be in control and tell me where to go or what to do, even when I'm driving the car, so-to-speak, because, I would guess, it makes her feel in control. I empathize.


I have more and more appreciation (or understanding?) of the subtle ways I try to control things in my life. At the moment, so much of that effort seems crazy and wasted. But at the time I'm in it I don't even recognize how much damage it causes me--and those around me.  So let me redouble my efforts to be connected to my Purpose, and to what's really true and authentic in me, and let everything else be. Everyday I have more opportunities to stop being a back seat driver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
~from Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”