Draft 1 Essay

When I was young, I used to love riding to school with my mom. Every ride to school was a new journey - we always laughed, played, and talked. There are no more car rides with my mom these days, as now I mostly drive alone from my apartment to Pepperdine.
Car rides with my mom were entertaining in their own ways. Usually, she was in charge of all the car activities, one of which was memorizing license plates of other cars. We would regularly invent new ways to memorize the license numbers, the winner was rewarded with a point, which we counted at the end of each week, and the loser had to cook dinner. Traffic is heavy in Kuwait, so my mom came up with another game called Green Light to make our rides more interesting. The objective of the game is to memorize at which time the traffic light turns green. Whoever feels that it’s the right time to leave in order to catch the green light will call it. If we left and caught the green light, the person who called it first would get a point in addition to the ones accumulated in the license plates game. My favorite kind of entertainment is music. My mother and I love old Arabic songs, so every month we would go to a small audio shop and make a mix tape with over thirty songs, and this would be our playlist for the month. Even though our entrainment was random, it got me excited about riding to school the following day.
After moving to Malibu, car rides’ entertainment became very different - instead of memorizing license plate numbers, I started memorizing restaurants and names of hiking spots. Later that day, I would read their reviews, and my reward would lie in visiting these restaurants and hiking spots and enjoying them. Because Californian roads are new to me, I cannot play the Green Light game here, and I usually take different routes when I drive to Pepperdine to see which route is faster. The radio in the US is overrun with commercials so I stopped listening to it, leaving me with my alternative favorite entertainment - thinking. I like to reflect on the things I did right and those I did wrong, and try to fix them. University life revolves around studying, and the drive to Pepperdine is the only time when nothing distracts me. Even though car rides with my mom were amusing, driving alone entertains my soul.
The process of waking up and going to school is the most comfortable thing with my mom. It’s true when my family members say that I’m a “mama’s boy.” My mother is my sub-alarm - If I don’t wake up, I know my mom will get me out of my slumber, and there is no fear that I will oversleep. Breakfast is always ready at 6:30 am, so I don’t have to wake up earlier to prepare breakfast. However, the best part was the absence of need to look for a parking spot, since I was dropped off right in front of my school.
With maturity, the idea of comfort changes. Even though now I have to depend on my alarm clock, make breakfast, and find parking spots, driving alone has its unique kind of comfort. When I drive alone to Pepperdine, I am in charge of the radio. There are no arguments about the route I choose to take. Instead of mom telling me when to leave, I decide on that myself. Now, after I moved to California, I feel more comfortable knowing my mother doesn’t need to wake up early to make me breakfast and get me school on time, and she can have all that time to herself without worrying about me.
The strongest bonds between my mother and me formed on the way to school. Every drive there with her was a unique experience because each time I learned something new. My mother would talk with me about all sorts of things in life: politics, relationships, ideas, and the best times were when she taught me her secret recipe tricks. In the beginning, I never discussed relationship problems with my mom, but after I had entered high school, I was so close with my mom that I felt it was rude not to tell her. Even though we spent a maximum of 45 minutes together in the morning, it was enough to make us best friends.
Unfortunately, there is no one to bond with when I’m driving alone; however, I reinforce the bonds with myself. I think of the future a lot. Sometimes when I drive, I like to think about how my life will turn out: Where will I live? Who will remain my friend? Conversations that I used to have with my mom help me when I think. Thoughts of the future open up my imagination to understand and know what I want in life. Even though I am young, when I’m thinking of the future I feel like a completely different man. Bonds with myself are the best kind of bonds I can build, and I know I’ll be an independent man.
Even though there are no more car rides with mom, the essentials remain, for both are delightful. There is nothing better than my mother dropping me off at school, yet, I can't complain about driving on PCH because of the breathtaking view and the ride itself. Breakfast in the car accompanies my wonderful drives. Eating it in the car is and was my tradition in both kinds of car rides; whether it’s my mother’s famous egg sandwich or my cheese sandwich, breakfast must be eaten in the car. Unfortunately, there is still traffic in both Kuwait and California, which it is truly insane, and sometimes it takes me an hour to get to either campus. Luckily, I got fundamentals that make both kinds of car rides similar.
Looking back, I realize that parents are the God’s gift in this world. I only needed to know my mom a bit better to break the parent barrier, and the car rides became the hammer that finally brought down that wall. I don’t understand why some kids don’t enjoy car rides with their parents; when in fact, they can find their most loyal friend this way.