Freedom Tastes Like Coors Banquet, Unless You're Driving...

It happened, and I couldn’t stop it. That sinking feeling that drops your heart into your stomach. I knew it was coming, and I thought I was better prepared this time. C’mon, he’s kid number four, and I should be rejoicing. This time he didn’t screw up. He passed with better scores than any of the other five of us. Or at least that’s what he claimed, and I believed him. For once.

He drives safer than any of my other three kids, one of whom landed a $200 speeding ticket in March. Natural consequences for the win. Our first backed into a Prius at 5 mph on Father’s Day and totaled it. But I digress...#adventuresinmotherhood. This newly minted driver has now tasted freedom.

“You just earned some control and freedom,” I reminded him on the way home after passing his driving test.

As the last of four children, he’s been begging for control since he was 6 or 7. (Inserted in case any of them read this. 6-7 😂)

He was only docked three points on the driving exam. To think they allow up to twenty, yes, twenty, point deductions on the exam is exactly why my insurance premiums are rivaling our monthly gas bill.

Pretty sure the “sir” and handshake, looking the instructor straight in the eyes like a cadet, sealed the deal. Wish he’d acted the same in other circumstances that cost him. Regardless, I have to count my blessings because “Grandmas” love him.

“Whoever taught you did a great job,” the instructor said, to which I signaled a fist bump, which was promptly ignored.

“Give your mom a fist bump,” Mr. I-take-my-job-seriously-on-and-off-the-road said.

I secretly love this man who had my back in the face of a teenager and wanted nothing in return. I imagined a high-five for Dad monitoring screen time, as every co-parent should, without begging. (Insert Happy Wife-Happy Life.)

Patting myself virtually on the back for all those arguments in the car over which lane to enter after a turn, and “Stoptional” is not a sign, not to mention the pulling over to the side of the road “fiasco” to switch drivers when the car suddenly lost altitude, and I gasped for oxygen and furiously grabbed the handrail.

“Doesn’t this freedom taste better than Coors Banquet in a can?” I questioned on the ride home. Victory was written all over his face, and I remembered when I busted him — barely 15 — for drinking at a party.

“It tasted like freedom, Coors Banquet in a can, no regrets,” he replied back then with a smirk after the drug test.

I literally cannot make this shit up.

We’re earning privileges back as fast as I rushed his father to a vasectomy to seal the deal after 20 weeks.

“Good thing I drink from a bottle,” his retort about an hour ago. I’m fairly certain he’s my late brother’s child, and I saw that coming like a deer in the headlights. My God has a sick sense of humor.

Clever. From a kid whose driver’s license privilege was revoked for at least five weeks for lacking sound judgment. Then again, accountability is my middle name. (Though I sucked at accounting as a finance major.)

Accountability, like when we had him read our driver’s license contract last weekend. Aloud. All 56 pages, and initial on every line. Joking, it’s only five pages, and though I’m no lawyer, I’m pretty sure it would hold up in court.

Nevertheless, the sky is pouring, and extreme Colorado hail is pounding a mockery into my soul as I sit on the porch bracing for the fact that I have my last teen driver. Meanwhile, my dog is hiding in the closet from the thunder. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for my life, parenting four kids for 23 years.

The fact of the matter is that I thought I would never grieve this, or my last child leaving the nest. The clouds are leaking, and so are my eyes.

I never minded driving my teens places. That’s the time when I can verbally interrogate them. I mean, quietly see into their soul with my CIA elicitation skills. The side-by-side situation is ideal for discourse. Now, I’m down to dinner-time highs and lows, or poker night, if I promise to up the ante with actual dollars versus chips.

Between parenting and mid-life interviews to figure out my next purpose, it was easier to get into the CIA.

I’m fairly certain that it was divine intervention that I bred four children.

First, to test my grit.

Second, to ensure I knew my number. Because I’m an overachiever.

Despite the fact that my mother flat-out told me it was too many children, I proved her wrong and bought her a steak dinner to recruit her back to the cause when he was cooking in the oven.

Now I’m cooked. Trying to survive two more years with a teenager. Boy, do I love him and question him with every fiber of my being, trained to spot weakness and untapped excellence.

He has a fresh slate.

And apparently, so do I.

He earned his freedom today. I get mine back tomorrow.

The rain helps. The house is quiet. School starts soon. And I am back to writing.

Because after 23 years of raising four kids, apparently the last one getting his driver’s license means his mother finally gets to stop navigating from the passenger seat.

Which, frankly, is terrifying.

And probably overdue.

Namasté.