I would like to take this opportunity to officially apologize to anyone I have mocked in the past for claiming to suffer from "jetlag". I am sorry for sneering at you and accusing you of attempting to prolong your vacation by faking extreme fatigue caused by something as simple as air travel. I am also just now emerging from my own fog of exhaustion and the feeling that the whole world and everything in it is just a little bit...off. After my recent trip, sans kids, to Hawaii (thanks again J!) it has taken me three days to even think about sharing my thoughts on what had to be one of the coolest weeks of my life. Following of course, the week I got married, the two weeks my girls were born and the week that The X-Files first premiered on televison. Now that I am finally feeling more myself, or rather a more tanned, relaxed version of myself, I have been trying to decide where to begin. After going around and around, it eventually hit me that there is really only one place to start. The Mustang.
White, shiny, new....fast....The Mustang (can you hear the caps? When I say it you can always hear the capital letters) was the car J upgraded to for our trip. His work was springing for a car (no caps there!) but this was Hawaii and what's the point of being in a tropical paradise if you can't feel the wind in your hair and really get sunburned while driving down the coast? So he spent the $300 dollars and The Mustang was ours for six glorious days. And the minute I saw it my heart thumped in my chest as I flashed back to the first time J drove up in a Mustang.
He had finally got the nerve up to ask me on an actual "date", or maybe I asked him, I can't really remember. What I do remember is my heart going so fast I thought it might actually crawl up my throat and run away. I remember the jingle the car made as he drove up, a leftover from some problem with one of the wheels that I never really understood but which made it easy to hear him coming from a mile away. And there he was, getting out of the oldest, reddest, coolest car I had ever seen. I wouldn't have even been able to tell you it was called a Mustang back then, only that it fit him to a tee. I didn't know wether I was going to laugh or throw up; I was so nervous. Which is funny really, when you have been friends with someone for a while, playing scrabble until all hours of the night and talking about nothing for hours at a time. But there is something about a date. A real date. Something official, scary, something that shouts out, "Here we are world! Together!" And it scared me to death as he strolled (oh, he was so amazingly handsome and the epitome of absolute cool...still is!) up the walk, took me by the hand and opened the door of that first Mustang for me. It's not like I had never been in his car before, but this felt different somehow. As if by getting in and going on this date it was becoming not his Mustang, but ours. And it did.
Oh, I know the red Mustang wasn't all sunny days and romance. It had more than its' share of problems - no seatbelt on my side (sorry mom!), no heat or a/c, a leaky top, a tendancy to just stop going. Honestly, it was a wreck. But J loved, and still loves, that car in the way that men have which, while I will never understand, I don't begrudge him. When it died for good he spent weeks trying to move the engine, which still worked somewhat, over into the body of another mustang he had found. Of course he knows very little about how cars actually work, so, while he did get the engine in and started once, it ultimately died and was put to rest in that second mustang. And if God was an author he would have been using a bit of subtle foreshadowing. That mustang was white.
Which brings us full circle to Hawaii and J opening the door for me in the Hertz parking lot. Only this time, 20 years later, I wasn't afraid. Oh, my heart was thumping, but it was thumping to the beat of all the good memories rushing back and the thrill of knowing that there were so many more to come. When he came around and got in, J grinned at me just as he had back then and I thought to myself, "This feels like coming home."
I know, I know, you're thinking I didn't actually tell you anything about our trip to Hawaii. Sorry. The rest of the trip was awesome, beautiful, exciting. There were expensive meals (again on the company, thank you Mattel!), glorious sunsets, dolphins and whales, shopping, everything you want in a tropical vacation. There was even the heart pounding excitement of an impending Tsunami and the resulting rush up into the mountains and night spent sleeping in the car. But, for me, it was really all about The Mustang and the man driving it...again.
Oh that was beautiful!! Keep on writing!!
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