Thing Number Twenty-Two | Spot

The car is our talking spot. Always has been, ever since our dating days. Back then, the car was “hot and windy” which sounds like some kind of euphemism, but, no. Jon was driving some sort of Honda during college (it was like a shoebox on wheels) and the air conditioner didn’t work so, on summer dates, we had the windows rolled all the way down so the wind could blow through but it was still hot. And windy. Didn’t matter, though, because we still had places to go and things to talk about.

Our talking spots have definitely upgraded since the hot and windy days (not that I have the right to tease, I was driving a Hyundai Excel in college and, let me assure you, it did not excel). Now our talking spots are either my 2005 Toyota Highlander (which I love and never, ever, ever want to get rid of ever, even if Jon says at some point we will have to replace it) or his 2010 Acura TSX (which he does not love because the driver’s seat hurts his back but I like because I feel kind of fancy in it).

I don’t know what it is about the car. Maybe it’s that we are each other’s captive audience. He’s usually in the driver’s seat and I’m usually in the passenger seat. He’s got to concentrate on the road ahead and I can’t read in cars. So, yes, there we are. The perfect venue for some in-depth conversations. And we’ve had many. Good conversations about vacation plans and book/movie reviews and what we should do on our Friday date night (those can turn kind of ugly, though, when neither one of us is feeling decisive or when one of us is feeling decisive and the other one of us doesn’t want to drive that far). Hard conversations like whether or not to keep pursuing fertility treatments and whether or not we should pay off a college loan or save the money and if our current church is the right one for us. Bad conversations that I won’t get into because those are the ones where I end up in tears (I’m a crier) and Jon ends up miserable (he’s not). So many conversations but I think the important thing is not the conversation itself but the fact that we are having the conversation at all. That we are talking. Pouring it out there in our own unique style and working things through. Talking things out. Coming to consensus or agreeing to revisit a topic later. Making decisions and making plans. Being there for each other and listening, really listening to what the other has to say.

The only problem with our talking spot? I have a very strong tendency to fall asleep in the car.