I don't like motorway driving either. In fact, it's motorway driving that makes me most anxious. Driving in town, any bumps you may have are likely to be fairly low impact (not always, I know, but usually). But on the motorway, it's a different story.
Last time I was driving on a motorway (a couple of weeks ago), I found myself feeling really quite agitated.
This is not good, I thought. So I kept calm, breathed regularly and deeply, and the moment slowly passed. Then I started digging around in myself. Why is this becoming a problem? I was in a car crash 8 years ago. Is it something to do with that? The more I thought about it, and tried to get in touch with whatever goes on at my gut level, the more I realised that this isn't about me and my driving. It's about 16-yo.
You know those mothers who tell you, when you're short of sleep, up to your elbows in dirty nappies, and trying to settle a fractious baby while keeping a busy toddler amused at a table in a café, "
just wait till they're teenagers"? You know them? Well, they do have a point.
I've spent years of my life, at a conscious level and at an unconscious level, waking and sleeping, keeping my children safe. It's part of the very fabric of my being. It's what I do. It's second nature, and third, and fourth, fifth, sixth. I protect them from harm.
I've supported their necks when picking them up, covered electric sockets, put kettles out of reach, used 5-point harnesses, understood what an isofix fitting is, purchased shin pads, strapped on helmets, and not let them put things round their necks. I've taught them how to cross a street, to walk carefully by the side of a swimming pool, to check the depth of water before diving in, not to talk to strangers, not to play with sharp knives, matches and electrical items. I've cut grapes into safely chewable halves, stopped them putting marbles in their mouths, moved furniture away from upstairs windows, kept plastic bags in a high cupboard, not left them alone in the bath, not allowed them to squash pillows over each other's faces, phoned GPs in the night, written my mobile number on their wrists, and held their hands when walking along pavements by busy traffic. Busy traffic. Whoa. Stop right there.
Now, it seems, I will soon need to stand back, while one of them takes control of a small metal box, which travels at speeds which can only be described as ludicrous when you think about the softness of the human body inside, and let him hurtle across the land in extremely close proximity to other small metal boxes, all of which are controlled by mere mortals, the majority of whom mean well but inevitably suffer from lapses in concentration and errors of judgment, and a small minority of whom are raving lunatics who can't tell the difference between the length of a car and the length of their own body appendages, if the distance between their front bumper and my back bumper in the outside lane of a motorway is anything to go by. It's a far cry from the 5-point harness.
I can sense that my recent anxiety about driving is anxiety about letting my oldest drive. I know I have to, and I know I will, but, Bloggy Friends who've travelled this road already, how on earth do I do this?
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