You’ve Been All Over, And It’s Been All Over You…
There’s something about driving in Boston. It’s a feeling that I can only describe as being like pulling into the driveway of the house you grew up in and being flooded with memories of the past, of what once was, or maybe what you once hoped your life would be; but I get this feeling all the time when I drive in Boston, and it’s unlike anything else. I’ve driven in many cities, from New York to San Francisco, but Boston is unlike any other city. Maybe it’s because I went to school here, or because my husband is from here, or because we’ve spent so much of our lives in and around the Boston area that makes this place special, it’s hard to say. If you mention Boston to people from other parts of the country almost all of them have something to say about “Boston Drivers”, and they’d be right, we are a bunch of road warriors when it comes to navigating Route 128 or the Mass Pike, but that’s just part of who we are. We’re Bostonians.
I had these feelings again on Sunday when I had to drive to Logan to pick up my husband from his recent trip, and I’m not ashamed to say that I love driving into the city on the Mass Pike on a Sunday morning when there’s no traffic. You get past that last toll both in Allston, you can see the channel 38 television tower as you turn that corner and head into the city, and as you accelerate down that long straightaway past Boston University, past Fenway Park, past Avalon, under the Prudential Tower and head into the tunnel, you look down and realize that you’re moving at close to 80 miles an hour and it doesn’t even phase you. You feel alive. The stereo is pumping, the car is purring as you push in the clutch and shift into fifth gear and take off down the road. You’ve got one eye out for the Mass State Police, but they blow by you in their blue and grey cruisers without even giving you a second look. They know the deal. They’re from Boston too. You reach the end of the Mass Pike and head into the tunnel that takes you under the harbor over to the airport, and everything in the world seems right. You’re home.
Such memories make us who we are, and some of this was inspired by this comment left by Rhoda about those feelings we have about our own past and how certain memories or perceptions of memories stay with us, and what’s completely ironic is that my husband and I had a very similar conversation about these things last night.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, paying bills of all things, and he looked up at me and asked, “How old do you feel?”
What a loaded question, but I thought about it and I began to think about exactly how old I was versus how old I felt, and I wondered if more people who are part of my lost Generation-X were in the same predicament that I was in; of being one age chronologically but feeling another age entirely, and that feeling being much younger than we really are. Both my husband and I have been blessed with good genes, neither one of us look our age. How the two of us managed to find each other in this world still amazes me sometimes, but we both could pass for ten years younger than we are all day long, in fact we both get carded pretty regularly.
Tho I started to wonder if our lifestyle didn’t have something to do with these feelings. It’s true that age is just a number, but we started talking about our parents, and how our parents just seemed older, that they were somehow grown ups while we were basically just overgrown teenagers. As we sat there with our laptops open, a stack of bills and the checkbook, we talked about how when our parents were our age that they just seemed so different than we are. There are days where this worries me because I seem to have more in common with my son than I do with what this idea of what I’m supposed to be that’s stuck in my head. It’s true, we have a mortgage, credit cards, health insurance, car payments, IRAs, and everything else that an adult person is supposed to have at our age, but we both feel as tho we’ve found that place where we never got any older, and maybe that’s a good thing, at least I think it’s a good thing, but as I turned to my husband to answer his question, I could only blurt out… 22. I feel 22. I feel the same today as I did when I graduated college.
He looked at me and said, “Huh. You too?” And then he went back to writing checks and paying bills.
This stuck with me all Monday night and all day today. When did I actually stop growing up? Was it really at 22? And then I got up and walked into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror, noticing that my hair was pulled up in a ponytail, wrapped with a scrunchie, and that I was wearing a Billabong sweatshirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Just another normal day at work for me, but wow, I’m somebody’s mother! I’m a wife! When did this all happen?
In Rhoda’s comment she wrote about this idea of who she perceived the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be, and how when she saw them she felt let down because they weren’t the young, funky monks they used to be. (I might have to disagree, because I still think they’re funky), but I did understand what she meant. Again, in another weird moment of irony, my husband started talking about U2 while we were driving home from Logan, and how he was remembering being back in Boston in 1982 seeing U2 at the Orpheum Theater and then he began reminiscing about all his old club stories; about places like The Paradise, The Channel, The Metro, and all kinds of other Boston Music stories that only he can tell.
So, maybe we have gotten older, but somehow we found that place where we never got older, and that’s a good place to be.
Yes, but it’s such a nice feeling sometimes isn’t it? I know I get a bit of a thrill when I get carded! I think, “Oooo! This guy thinks I look like I’m under 21!” 
I understsand completely, and feel the same. I am routinely taken for 10 years younger than I am. Perhaps it’s the cycling and other sports. I have a much different, more physically, mentally, and maybe even emotionally active life than my parents.
I feel like I’m still in my late 20s or early 30s much of the time.
xoxo
-saratoga