The Rogue Road Warrior

Featured image: the Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge alongside the old Tappan Zee Bridge it replaced.

If they made a movie of my life, all you’d see is me driving.

Ugh! I have to be officially up at 5:00 a.m., and on the road by 7:00 a.m. at the absolute very latest, so naturally, at 3:00 a.m., I’m in front of my sewing machine making a new purse.

You know that friend we all have? The one who magically whips up stuff?

• You’re going to a 50’s-themed Halloween Party, everyone else comes in t-shirts, leather jackets, and blue jeans and she has a hand-sewn, perfect poodle skirt?
• You’re going on a double date and she and her date arrive in matching t-shirts?
• You send out those pre-packaged Hallmark party invitations for your kids. She creates custom ones from cardstock?
• You take the kids to the beach, and at lunch time, you pull out a couple juice boxes and PB&J sandwiches and she unpacks a cooler full of freshly sliced veggies, fruits, and whole wheat turkey sandwiches with the crusts cut off?

Yeah, that friend is me. Except for the gourmet lunch at the beach thing. That was my friend Jamie, as in Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman from the 1970’s TV show of the same name.

Everything I learned about early motherhood, I learned from Jamie.

Toddlerhood was as far as I got as a “real”, full-time mom. Then the divorce happened, or rather, I made it happen.

It had to happen.

Moving on.

When I need to relax, I create something, and I REALLY need to relax before a trip through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. My son lately has been joking that he wishes my dog could teleport.

Man! I wish I could. Maybe I could even sleep through it.

Not a chance.

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If someone made a movie of my life, the opening credits would show an endless highway. Maybe clips of me driving from Boston to Philadelphia across multiple highways over the course of 14 years and four cars.

The seasons would change: fall, winter, spring, summer.

The time of day would change: night, early morning, midnight, afternoon.

The cars would change: A 1998 gunmetal gray Toyota Camry LE; a 2008 gunmetal green Toyota Camry LE (bullet-shaped and more aerodynamic than its 1998 predecessor); a 2014.5 midnight, so called “Parisian Blue” Toyota Camry LE (longer and squarer than the 2008, not as cool as the 1998).

Finally, a 2018, dark gray Subaru Forrester (bought used. After 10 years in New England, I decided all wheel drive was a necessity).

Maybe you’d see the odometers on the first 4 of those cars whirl up over the 150K mile mark faster than, it felt like at the time I was driving them, I could blink.

You might get a cut away to the time I was pulled over alongside the entrance to New York Route 87, just before the Tappan Zee Bridge, and hear me telling the officer in response to his question about what I had to say for myself, “Well, the Pats stink and I’m a Jets fan.” (That got a chuckle from the officer, but it did not get me out of a speeding ticket).

Possibly, you’d get a glimpse of me crossing outbound of the newly-built Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge, which replaced Tappan Zee in the mid 10’s, late at night, just as the last car ever to cross the old TZ crossed on the inbound side.

I would definitely get older. Not the least in part because of Northeast Corridor Traffic.

Kiddo would get taller. A LOT taller. As a gangly teenager I would tease my shorter Aunt Liz about her height. “How’s the view down there?” I would ask.

Man! Karma is a bitch! My son loves putting his hand flat on the top of my head and moving it to where it comes up to the middle of his chest. He smirks at me the whole time he does it, too.

Like I said before, Leading Man #1 is a lot like me.