in the back seat

I am looking out as gray colored fields rush by along the interstate and listening to a mellow attitude producing mixed cds. Christmas celebrations are nearing their end. The Anderson family is packed into a seven passenger van traveling back from spending time with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. The last few days have been inundated with the national pastime of overeating and sweatpants are now the clothing of choice.

The seven of us sitting crammed together for several hours takes me back to younger years. The reality of all of being in the same vehicle is an oddity in and of itself and now when we do find ourselves traveling together we each pull out our personal music players, books and try to squeeze into a comfortable world of our own. It has not always been this way.

Back in the day we had the mini-bus size van with maroon colored paneling and tough plastic covered seats. Each Christmas our family would pack up and travel first to see my mom’s side of the family and then onto my dad’s. We would make the time pass by trying to sleep. Making awkward piles of Anderson kids upon the van benches. Upon waking we would play ever popular games like ‘I spy” or the “alphabet game” which consisted of finding the alphabet in order outside anywhere outside of the vehicle.

It is good to grow up and hard not to romanticize the past. And yet at moments like this where I sit in the back of the van, I am transported back to a time not that long ago where things seem simpler in retrospect and I begin to miss my copy latest copy of the Hardy Boys and snack bag from my stocking that I would munch on without guilty feelings of an expanding waist line.