Thursday, May 17, 2012

Bethenny Shops for Cars

My mom says I remind her a lot of Bethenny Frankel. To which I say, "Really? She's so funny! And she's so skinny!" And then reality sets in, and I am reminded that it's not because I'm funny or skinny - two things which I don't really think I am.

It's because I'm quite possibly one of the most neurotic, high strung, on-the-verge-of-hyperventilating, temperamental people in the world. Everything must be perfect at all times, or I'm a failure at everything. I have noticed this more and more as a parent. When Collins does something in public that she shouldn't do, like take a toy away from a kid, I freak the eff out. She's a kid, she doesn't know about sharing and boundaries yet. I shouldn't expect her to behave perfectly.

I just need to chill the eff out.

What some might call immature or snotty or bratty, I call intense. I get it. I am incapable of being halfway on anything. I'm either speeding downhill faster and faster and faster and faster...or I'm sitting on the couch in my underwear eating potato chips. There's no middle ground. I'm either 150% or, well, dead. And I know that I compartmentalize my feelings because I "just don't have time for that kind of shit..." uuuuuuntil they just explode all over everything.

So imagine my surprise when I have an epic meltdown in the parking lot of CarMax. All day I have been coaching myself to just breathe. Just breathe and get the eff over it, you can't have an actual love affair with your car for Christ sakes.

But..........I do.

My meltdown wasn't about wanting a car I can't have, or wanting to spend more money than we should. It had nothing to do with that at all. It had everything to do with change.

For all intents and purposes Ol Blue is my very first car. It's my only car. I've had her since I was 16. I cannot count how many times my girlfriends and I drove around in that car, laughing and singing and dancing to music...or how many times I drove home from the movies after a date, feeling all bujiggity and giddy...or how many times I sat in my car crying because a boy broke up with me - or worse, because I broke up with a boy and really hurt him. Or how many times I drove back home from college with a semester's worth of clothes and crap piled in the backseat. Or how many rush parties my car caravanned to. Or how many pulls of vodka we took, sitting in the parking garage on 17th & R just listening to music (not driving). Or how many times I played mix CDs of music that reminded me of a great night or a great party or great friends. Or how many times I curb checked in the Sandoz parking lot. Or how many bottles I had to get out from the way back because Collins chucked it when she finished her milk.

I know it's just a car, but it's been an amazing car. We've had a great ride. She's gettin old and tired. But she's really the only tangible link I still have to the girl I used to be. Fun, flirty, young, wild, free, crazy. I still have some of those qualities, but I don't have the same mind, or the same heart, or the same body. Everything has changed in my life. Ol Blue is the only thing that has ever stayed the same. So when people talk about car shopping like it's so exciting and fun, I just can't relate. I think it's gut wrenching, because I guess I just hate change and not being in control of time.

But as I sat at the steering wheel, I just felt like the whole world was crashing around me and I was being confronted with the reality that I'll never be the girl I used to be. In a lot of ways, thank God for that. I did a lot of dumb shit. But at least the dumb shit I used to do, and the mischief I used to get into didn't carry the consequences that it carries now. But how sad is it when you have grown up and not even realized it until you are forced to part with the youth you had to leave behind?

I think I need the number for Bethenny's therapist.

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