Ode to the Backseat

Think back to your youth all you adults and the thrill, or for those of you with siblings, the fight to call the front seat! Ahh the luxury and disillusioned feeling of maturity we felt when climbing into the passenger seat.

"I'm sitting in the front of the car. I've arrived. I'm no longer at the bottom of the food chain. Winning!"

If only I could go back to those days and really take in the moment, when I reveled to feel older and desired that false sense of adulthood. Now, as another notch of official yeardom approaches I find myself not caught by my yearly mortality reminder, but more in how I wish I could go back to the carefree days of the backseat.

Ahh, free chauffeur service. Those were the days...but were they?

Yes, I'd be lying to say no, but I'd also be lying to say yes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the backseat will always feel dissatisfactory on some level. Why? Because the view is compromised. From the back you can only make out half of what lies ahead, and since most of us are creatures that like to be aware of our surroundings and know what we are about to face it's natural to revolt to only getting half the scene. Only grasping a portion of the world around us is, to say the least, frustrating.

Then again, maybe that's why we have the backseat to begin with. Maybe there is a reason it's safer for us to sit in the back as we grow. It gives us time to process the world beyond the window. And even as we may squirm in our seat, tired of the constraints second to that of a straight jacket, we are safe. And after a few short years and many shoe sizes later, one day one of your parents asks you if you'd like to sit in the "front" today. Your eyes grow big, a smile conquers your face and it happens. You have reached the next level. But beware, it is just the beginning of the end. From this point things will only grow more complicated. There is no going back from this point on. Life's view will no longer be the same and the innocence of the back seat will never be the same.

Oh backseat, may we ever appreciate all the worry free journeys and naps we enjoyed in your arms.