we accept the seat we think we deserve

In the last few months, I’ve started learning how to drive. It’s been an interesting road (ha see what I did there?). I’ve always been an anxious person so the idea of manuvering a large, steely robot around unpredictable people and other robots does make my chronically dry hands sweat a bit. But like many things I’ve never tried before, it’s opened my eyes to so much more.

My whole life I’ve sat in the back seat. I don’t really know why that is cuz I’m not the youngest or anything. My younger brother actually rode in the front seat with my Mom. It went from the two of us in the back seat and my older sister in the front straight to my brother in the front. We never talked about it, it just happened that way. Though, when my sister started driving us around, I sat in the front but that was just a really fun year.

Even when my friends drove us to the mall or around on some holiday, I kind of instinctually sat in the back. I never felt comfortable in the front, even though my motion sickness might’ve preferred it if I thought twice.

In a way, this was similar to the way I lived my life. I went to a really small middle/high school. Everyone sort of knew everyone but at the time, especially since small town life was all I knew — it felt like a really big world. I did a whole bunch of activies: I played little league sports (awfully), sang in a rock band (in pigtail braids… never saw the irony), started my schools expanded recycling program, tutored for math and other subjects. I jumped around, trying to find my place. I tried to find control in small things (even though no 16-year-old really has that much control. That’s why they rebel so much!)

I spent a lot of time in the proverbial “back seat” even when I was the president or lead or when I sat at a packed lunch table. I wasn’t sad, I just didn’t belong because I subconsciously put myself aside to try and fit in.

Driving teaches you to see the road, the car, the people in the car, people in other cars differently. It’s literally a whole new perspective. It’s made me notice small things, like how when the radio is on the people in the back can’t really hear the people in the front seats. I never noticed that before. I rode in the back listening to my family and friends through a filter. I never noticed that it was harder to hear them that way.

After high school, I went to Berkeley which despite outnumbering my tiny international school by 4000% felt really small. I had a small group of friends that I saw often and I started to feel like I belonged in a way that I never did when I was younger. There were lots of people to talk to about things that I was actually interested in and people who helped me learn to put myself first.

Part of my bildungsroman was learning to set higher standards for myself. As a young girl, it felt like any small amount of attention or affection was paramount. I didn’t need anything special or even specific to me — I was lucky to even be in the car.

I think about the kind of behavior I permitted and the kind of relationships I accepted back then and 22-year-old me is astounded. Now, I am surrounded by people who think about things like which flavor of sparkling water I like the most; about walking me through my driveway and up the three flights of stairs so I make it to my apartment door safely; who sit with me for hours talking me through giant existential crises, calmly explaining why I need to wash my beauty blender more than once a year. In a literal sense, friends that ask whether I’m sure I wanna sit in the backseat and agree to alternate with me so that we both get a turn. Things have turned around for me in that comparment (purposeful malaprop.)

When I was 16, I had people tell me that they avoided sitting near me on the bus because they didn’t want to have a “Zulaika” conversation and that they just wanted to have fun. While it’s sad that someone felt the need to say that to me, it was sadder that I accepted it and tried to change. Accepted someone else’s definition of myself. Like we were all going somewhere in my car, a car that I worked to pay for and clean and maintain, and then without even being asked to, I got in the back seat.

I know it’s not necessary to revisit my past to mope about how a young woman undervalued herself and let herself be diminished. It has likely happened to all of us. But I’d like to document the improvements I’ve made. I’m not the person I was any more. In large part thanks to the wonderful friends I made, I have been able to demand a little more for myself each day. Learn to consider myself and what I want and to ask for it if I can. These are the kinds of things some people have to learn because we are taught to put ourselves last.

I’ve actually got a learner's permit now! Like I drove out on the real road the other day, backed right out of my tiny driveway, and accidentally got on the highway once! And for a kid who literally does not know how to ride a bike that is a big deal. I should be taking a test any day now and you know who doesn’t sit in the back seat? The driver.