Drive

Hello, this is Pandagorogoro.
I like driving.
I like songs to listen to while driving.

When I was a child, I suffered from severe motion sickness, so I didn't really like driving.

I was the kind of child who would get a stomachache just from smelling the car seats or the air conditioning.

As I grew older, I gradually got used to it and became able to ride in cars driven by people other than my father or brother.
Even so, I disliked riding in cars because I never knew when I might feel sick or what I would do if I got a stomachache, so I preferred taking the train even if it took longer than taking a taxi.

As an aside, I remembered this, so I will write it down.

I have written before that my parents raised my brother by spoiling him.
It seems the first and second children were both girls, but both were born prematurely and passed away shortly after birth.
For parents like that, my brother, who was the third child and born safely, was a long-awaited child, and on top of that, a boy who would be the heir, so I can understand why they wanted to spoil him.

When my brother turned twenty and got his driver's license, he was naturally still a university student.
Even so, my parents bought hima bright red Savanna RX-7to drive.
A shiny new car.

Parents being doting is one thing, but there's a limit.

I don't think they ignored me, the fourth child (me) born the year after my brother, but perhaps because we were born in consecutive years, I was treated strangely like an afterthought.
Everything was after my big brother.

I wonder if I was jealous after all.

Still, since we were siblings, there were times he would drive me to my women's university in his bright red car.

When the driver was someone I didn't have to be reserved with, my motion sickness seemed to be greatly reduced.

Now, back to the story.

The reason I, who dislike cars, came to like driving is because it is my husband who drives.

My husband is the type who gets a stomachache when he rides the train.
He says that when he was young, he often had to rush to the restroom at stations on his way to work.

I was surprised when I first heard that story from my husband.
This is because I had thought that even between a married couple, one shouldn't talk about such private matters, like bodily functions.

However, my husband thought that those topics were related to health, so they were important matters and information that should be shared, especially between a married couple.

What I thought was an "embarrassing topic," my husband thought was "necessary information to be considerate of his wife."

Since then, when I go for a drive with my husband, I have come to ask for the windows to be opened or closed or for restroom breaks without hesitation.

After our children were born, we started going for drives as a family.

When the topic of my husband's overseas assignment came up, I followed the advice of his boss and got my driver's license too.
(In the end, my husband was able to remain at the head office, so I didn't have to go to Beijing or Copenhagen. I am weak against the cold, so I was truly grateful for that.)

When my father-in-law was in critical condition, I put our two children in the back seat and drove through the town in the early hours of the morning to my husband's parents' house, praying all the way.
My husband was staying at the hospital with my mother-in-law.

Since my husband bought a new car, I no longer have to drive.
That's because my husband makes a huge fuss if I accidentally scratch it while parking.
It's a huge help.

I received a call from my mother-in-law, who lives alone, saying that after she fell, she couldn't walk.

When my husband, who works remotely, took her to the hospital in the evening, she was admitted immediately.

Unlike me, who has to go to the office for work, my husband makes time every day to go to the hospital to visit his mother.

On my days off, the two of us go to the hospital to visit.

We go to the hospital in time for evening visiting hours.
I check on my mother-in-law and make a note of things to bring to her room the next day.

After leaving the hospital, my husband and I stop at a restaurant along the highway a little ways away to have dinner.

And then, after that, we drive through the city at night until we return home.

It might sound strange, but I am very happy during the time we spend driving along the local national highway like this.

Driving, which I disliked as a child, now makes my heart flutter in my early old age.

I like songs for driving.

Songs I like for driving.
They are all masterpieces that are hard to choose between.

Drive

Akina Nakamori (Lyrics/Composition: Jun Horie)

Blind Curve

Momoko Kikuchi (Lyrics: Yasushi Akimoto, Composition: Tetsuji Hayashi)

Wind Crossing the Pier

Yumi Matsutoya (Lyrics/Composition: Yumi Matsutoya)

Thank you for reading until the end today as well.