I had to have one. There was no way I could do another trip, even for an hour, in the *very nice* SUV we already had. Now with two kids under two there was “no way” I could handle sitting in the 'fake' third row while my husband drove, constantly popping pacifiers back into the baby’s mouth, or dodging discarded board books and snacks from my toddler's side of the car. Every trip left me scrunched in the back, hormones raging, head pounding, and hips aching.
I needed space. I needed a van to have room for the bags, the bottles, and the other billion things that come with having two children.
Yeah, a van would solve my problems.
So there we were at the Honda dealership in the middle of the work day. In the middle of my husband’s busiest time of the year. In the middle of Slack messages, emails, texts, and calls about real time projects that were much more pressing than my urgent need to purchase a vehicle on a whim. There we were standing in the July heat being manipulated by Michelle, the woman born to sell minivans to moms.
You could say she won. Ninety minutes later, I was signing papers to become the owner of a sleek white spacious child carrying vessel. I didn’t care that the van had scratches all over the interior, or that the door hinges seemed just a little rusty. It was big! I could fit in between two car seats without my bones being smashed by plastic. It would make everything just right.
Buying the minivan seemed easier than embracing what was really going on, which was the reveal that having two kids was entirely harder than I could have imagined. My urgent need ‘to have it’ wasn’t about needing more space, it was serving as a disguise that life was shifting faster than I could grasp. Life was tilting to an axis that it had never been before. Becoming a mother once was a shake, but becoming a mother twice was an earth shattering jolt. Having two didn’t seem to just double the effort, it felt like winding up in the marathon when I only signed up for the 10K.
Having our second baby meant my relationship with precious time changed, again. And this time any window of freedom that presented itself when one baby slept had to be matched with the other sleeping too.
It was my freedom that was on the line.
The freedom that once looked like days of my husband and I pulling up Google Flights to see where we could go on a whim, packing one damn bag, and leaving the house with two empty hands. Traveling now is an orchestration of logistics and deep management of guilt.
An orchestration that makes me question, ‘is it even worth it to go?’
Because going means packing for myself, finding childcare, making sure grandma knows where the sleepytime gummies are and that even though she will tell you she can have two, she absolutely can’t. It means calling ahead to make sure there is ice and a mini fridge in the hotel room so my breast milk will stay cold as I cart a cooler, pump, ice-packs, and extra shirts around. It means making sure the plastic bags of milk don’t come undone and leak all over the TSA security belt, like they did that time I came home from Chicago. The TSA officer uncomfortable as he shrieks, ‘what is that white stuff leaking out of your bag?!’ Chill out dude, I’m feeding human existence from my own body here.
Now, freedom looks like a drive to the grocery store by myself. One where I take slow steps down each aisle, watching as others float through grocery lists. My heart flickers for a moment at the mother with children dripping over her cart, but I don’t spend too long watching, this is my time. I stockpile snacks that I know I’ll hide in the van, ones I don’t have to share. I pull the needed items off the shelf and organize them into beautifully arranged piles, my only sense of order lately. Did you know they play music at the grocery store? It’s there if you listen. It’s lovely.
It wasn’t until the evening after a trip to the grocery store that I found myself tidying up the remains of the day, hanging my keys on the hook near the garage, that I began to wonder why the minivan had not, in fact, solved my problems. My phone buzzed with a parenting newsletter I follow. And there I stood, leaning against the wall, slowly allowing my body to sink down to the floor as tears turned to sobs as I read the beautiful words of Denisse Myrick summing it up better than I ever could.
She writes, “Because the fact of the matter is that the sooner we can accept that stepping into motherhood is stepping into an agreement with eternal change, the sooner we get to experience new versions of ourselves in their entirety.”
Buying the minivan didn’t give me back my lost freedoms. Buying the minivan was a wake up call in realizing that my identity as a mother means my identity as the woman I was before will never be the same. Now, it's understanding that even though I can configure the seats of the van in a multitude of ways, it won’t keep solving my need for self reflection into who I was, who I am now, and who I am trying to be.
Each day as I slide open that shiny white van door and buckle those sweet, sweet faces into their carseats, I remember to embrace the eternal change that comes with motherhood. The one that invites in a new version of me. The one that now drives a minivan.
My first essay while participating in Write of Passage Cohort 11.
Special thanks to everyone who helped me edit and refine.
Love seeing where you took this.
This line cracked me up: "Did you know they play music at the grocery store? It’s there if you listen. It’s lovely."
Another honest, beautiful piece! Thanks for sharing your writing (and experience) with us. <3