The Change of Life

When I hear the term “The change of life” I go back in time to when I was a child and my mother had a hysterectomy. My father kept saying that my mother was going through “The change of life” and all I wondered was, what was wrong with the one she had?

That’s not the change of life I’m talking about though, I’m talking about yesterday… Saturday June 24, 2006… which will now go down in the Soldaat history books as one of the major turning points in our lives.

It was the first day since the year 2000 that my husband and I were in a car alone together and one of us was driving. The first time we got in a car and went shopping, went for a scenic drive, and took things bigger than we could carry home ourselves. A rather small and meaningless thing to those of you back home who read this, but a major event in our lives!

The Netherlands has fantastic public transit. You can get pretty much anywhere you want to go as long as you are willing to take trains, busses, trams or subways. Which is why many people here aren’t in a hurry to get their drivers license, or just don’t get it at all. This has been a fight between Xander and I for years, and now it’s over. He got his drivers license and yesterday he got to feel for the first time what it’s like to drive, REALLY drive. Not with an instructor with you, but where you rule the road and as long as you’ve got gas in the tank you can go wherever you want to, whenever you want to. Something I’ve been missing for a very very long time.

One of Xander’s girlfriends (as in friend who is a girl, not touch your naughty bits friend – I HOPE) was kind enough to lend us her car for the weekend, and ohmyfuckinggod have we been having fun with it! Yesterday we drove until he begged me to stop… what can I say, it’s been too long!

At the end of the day he was exhausted, which was understandable seeing as it was his first day really driving. That can be stressful and draining mentally, but he did fantastic! To be honest (I can say this now that it’s over), I was a nervous wreck on Friday night because I thought he was going to be a nervous and jumpy driver, which would make me a very nervous passenger. He wasn’t though, he’s a really great driver and I was totally relaxed with him, it was fucking unbelievable. I don’t even know how many times I almost cried yesterday just from the sheer bliss of feeling like we were finally totally independant.

We ended the day by going to see 16 Blocks, an action movie starring Bruce Willis and what I hope was a fake beer gut bodysuit. I didn’t really have any expectations going into the movie, but I quite liked it! I’d go see it for the 2nd time before I’d catch a repeat of The Da Vinci Code or X-Men 3, which were both massive disappointments.

One question… Who the hell is Mos Def, and does he really sound like that? I never heard of the guy before seeing the movie and I came out wondering about him. He was amusing in a Chris Tucker kind of way.

I put my feet up on the seat in front of me in the cinema.

Xander couldn’t put his up because in an empty theater, this strange girl chose the seat directly in front of him. I find that so odd, is she weird or am I?

He was too tired to care.

Now I just have to get my Dutch drivers license and we are golden. Pity that after 15 years with my Canadian DL that I have to pay hundreds of euros for lessons and a test here in NL. Oh well, who could complain on a great weekend like this?? I’m so happy I could bust!