The Only Child's Manifesto

Being an only child has an upside.

Sure, I'm spoiled. My mother never had any money, but in her single-parent exhaustion she was more than happy to acquiesce to my demands. We alternated between spaghetti and shake-n-bake for dinner until my mom remarried when I was 9. When it was time to play, my mother delighted in whatever ideas I had, whatever games I came up with, and everything I had to say. Add to the usual danger of an only child never having to accommodate what anyone else wants to do my mother's overriding desire not to "crush my spirit." She didn't. My mom found it easier to pick up after me than to make me pick up after myself, so that's how we rolled. And I have had a hell of a time in adult life. I have spent my 20s struggling with the huge gap between my academic accomplishments and my total inability to take care of myself. I have been fortunate enough to have friends who would tell me I had to make concessions to the group or get lost. I have spent most of my life completely oblivious to my impact on other people. It's been an uphill battle that I am only starting to win.

But I do have spirit. If I wanted to wear one pink sock and one green sock to school, my mother thought that was great. As a result, I have a unique personal style, and while shopping my girlfriends sometimes say wistfully, "Oh, well, YOU could pull that off, but I never could." If I'm happy with how I look, screw it. (Again, this has had some downsides, as you might imagine.) I have no trouble going to a movie, a party, or a bar by myself. I often prefer hanging out by myself and even went on vacation alone once -- by choice. There is no such thing as lonely. There is freedom from the nuisance of everybody else. 

As a spoiled child, I do not like to hear that I can't do something. My refusal to take no for an answer is a big part of my personality and has significantly impacted my life. I am a closer. You need that person at the table sometimes. I founded a non-profit, and every new challenge just made me more determined to achieve what I set out to do. I spent my childhood reading on the couch while my mother yelled at me to clean the bathroom and then gave up. I have read a lot. I made perfect grades. I love to spell and learn and study. It is my natural state of being. 

My mother didn't do me any favors, but my upbringing made me who I am today. And, at the age of 30, I am finally able to do the laundry without crying. As the executive director of a non-profit, I am learning that people like it when you are "nice" to them. Rather than imposing my will on everybody else, my biggest challenge now is to meet everybody as equals and figure something out -- start to finish -- together. I will probably always be learning the lessons that you don't even realize your brothers and sisters taught you. As a result, I will be frustrated, overwhelmed, and me. 

The Reliant Lives to Fight Another Day

I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself, but it looks like my beloved Reliant is going to pass inspection in Virginia. As well it should. The Reliant is 22 years old and looks like hell, but it only has 77,000 miles on it, and therefore is a completely safe form of transportation given a few adjustments.

For example.  The windshield wipers don't work (as in, the motor that makes them go is broken), so I just periodically wax the window real good. Rain slides right off. The driver's side mirror is held in place by a hair thingy, so I just look over my shoulder a lot. When it's cold it takes 4 grown men to steer the car out of its parking space, so I let it warm up for a good 5 minutes on cold days and avoid making a left turn for as long as possible. The air-conditioner hasn't worked since 1996, so I leave the windows open in the summer. Eliminate the greenhouse effect, and keep moving, and you eliminate misery. I lost the key last year, and the Reliant is so old Plymouth (or whoever bought them) didn't have a replacement key to send me, so I had to get the ignition replaced. Now the door locks don't match the ignition key so even if it were necessary, you couldn't lock the car door. 

When my mom brought the 8-year-old Reliant home a few days after my 16th-birthday she was elated. The car had under 50,000 miles on it and my Grandpa approved of the motor. The car cost $5,000. I cried. It was boxy and stupid-looking. In the low-cost-of-living meets more-credit-is-good-credit Southern town where I grew up, 16-year-olds got brand new cars. The high school parking lot was full of brand-new Saturns, Jeep Wranglers, Corvettes (no, I am not kidding -- Misty and Kristy had matching ones), and the Reliant. Appropriately, I parked near the Career Center, alongside trucks with Confederate flags hanging in the rear windows. And, contrary to what my parents believed, other kids DID notice my stupid car. And made fun of it. In the Arkansas summers I used to wear my bikini to drive to work and change into my uniform at the movie theater. When I went to college I left that thing in the dust.

Then I got old. Now, a few days before my 30th birthday, I am terrified that the Reliant will not pass Virginia inspection. It's tough. The first place I took it to wanted to charge $2000 to bring it up to standard. My cousin in Michigan could fix it up for $600, but that doesn't much help me unless I plan to take a week off work and drive to his junkyard. Thankfully, my roommate knows a guy. Actually, two guys. Korean guys. And let me tell you, THANK GOD for immigrants from Third World countries. In the Third World, the average life span of an automobile is 47 years. A boy becomes a man when he learns how to fix the car. Doors are held on with duct tape. And people make adjustments. 

I can understand that people don't want that kind of thing on the roads in Arlington. But the fact is, those people understand neither the need to get by nor the joy of it. They don't understand the need to do without a working radio if it means the car can be counted on to get you to work. My insurance is next to nothing. Where I live, the parking lot is full of Mercedes, Infinities, Lexii, and Volkswagens. The Reliant doesn't fit in. So I park on the street. None of this is new to me. What's new is my adult sense of pride in my mother's ability to spot immortal cars (she drove an orange Pinto station wagon for 20 years; the only reason she stopped driving it was because it took leaded fuel), my car's ability to defy convention, and yes, my own resourcefulness. The Reliant may look like hell, but it runs. My mother may not like that the windshield wipers don't work, but I can see in the rain. And none of it may be ideal, but neither is life. Certainly not mine. For me, the real joy in life comes in rooting for the underdog, defying the odds, and making good things last. 

Besides, my roommate's guy is going to fix the wipers and some other stuff for not much more than my cousin was going to charge me, and pass the car to boot.  I'm happy with what I have. Now, a few days before my 30th birthday, with my old pal ready to chug along with me once more, I am feeling sightly concerned about my INTENSE desire to avoid change.