(Originally posted in Facebook on February 27, 2019)
Peace, quiet, calm. The only negative in my life right now is that it’s raining. Again. Which means the house will be filled with muddy paw prints this afternoon. But I’ll take calm and mud any day over chaos.
One of the biggest changes in the dynamic between M and I is that I am now driving whenever he and I go anywhere. I won’t get in the car with him behind the wheel.
It was probably last fall when I made that decision. We had been running errands on a Saturday afternoon and he drove out of a parking lot, turning left onto a two-lane road. Fortunately, there wasn’t any traffic on the road because when he made the turn, he ended up on the wrong side of the yellow lines. I know I should have remained calm and kept my voice down when I let him know he needed to get to the other side of the road. I’m afraid calm, cool and collected didn’t happen. So, of course, he was rattled because I was yelling and I was upset because I felt like we were nearly in a head-on collision. It wasn’t a good time for either of us.
The first few times I took the keys and got in the driver’s seat when we were going somewhere together, he laughed and took it like a joke – as though it wasn’t going to last long. But it’s been going on for a good six months now and he doesn’t mention it any more. Naturally, he tries to find something to criticize about my driving – I knew that was going to happen. He’s always said the first time he ever put on a seat belt was the first time he rode in a car with me driving. Har dee har har.
I feel guilty because he’s still driving himself to work and back and I’m not entirely sure he should be. Of course, my parents are still behind the wheel and I’m not sure they should be, either. I’m really struggling with when all three of them should have their car/licenses taken away and how to go about doing that. Talk about tough conversations! This is one I’m NOT looking forward to.