“Wait…YOU don’t have your license?” *scoff*
From boyfriends to employers to a little boy riding next to me on his bicycle, it seemed everyone around me had an opinion about the fact that no, I did not know how to drive a car at 27 years old.
Not driving had its perks. I didn’t have the added expenses of a car, like gas or insurance. I didn’t have to stress about parking or getting in an accident. I learned how to use the public transportation. My street smarts were on point. My carbon footprint was low. And hey, I learned to enjoy my morning coffee while watching pigeons fight each other to the death over a half eaten french fry in front of my bus stop.
Every so often though, I’d find myself in a situation where I wished I could drive. The time I paid $60 for an Uber to return to work in time for my boss to think it actually was a “dentist appointment” and not a new job interview. A car sounded really nice whenever I’d have to run to catch the 62 home, my leggings cooling in the wind with sweat from a yoga class.
When the fact that I couldn’t drive would come up: “but how do you not know how to drive?…” I would get a pang of shame and judgement. My heart would lurch at the subject and I felt like a failure: Why have I not learned this basic life skill when there are 16 year olds across the country getting their drivers licenses’ every day?
When I was 16 my parents were separating. Our middle class household couldn’t afford another car or driving lessons. The time I spent with my mom and dad as they shuffled me around our small-college-town-like-city was the only time I spent with them. Maybe they wanted to sustain the only way I was dependent on them a little bit longer? Maybe they were in no rush to increase the risk of me getting into an accident? No one was encouraging me to drive the family minivan.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer within the same time frame. Suddenly I looked like an adult, and as the oldest of four kids, I acted like one too. I made meals, I kept track of where my siblings were, I walked my sister home from school. My parent’s had lost my social security card and birth certificate. I figured out on my own how to navigate the governmental systems to get those for myself.
Over the next two years my mom’s cancer went into remission and the impending divorce was official. I headed to New York City for college where I expected I’d live out the rest of my life. I planned to be a shriveled up single old lady with a doorman named Hank who would hail my cabs and a nice grocery delivery service on speed dial. My lifelong exercise would be walking the neighborhoods of the city taking in art and culture. Getting my license was unnecessary in the narrative.
When people marveled at the fact that I was in my late 20’s and couldn’t drive it brought up a lot of trauma. Trauma of having to grow up too fast and not at all, all at once. Looking back at a very lonely time in my life was painful. Every time the subject of getting my license came up it was hard to open up the box. I felt guilty that in the ten plus years of being eligible to drive I didn’t save money for a car or lessons. I felt shame that I wasn’t able to figure it out on my own. Every year I would set driving as a goal and still my twenties rolled by without achieving it.
When the pandemic hit I moved to a rural area on an island outside of Seattle. The country and proximity to nature sounded like an ideal way to evade Covid-19. During a time of great uncertainty there was one thing that was certain: my Fiancé turned to me and said “Look you need to get your drivers license if we are going to live out here.” It was time to work through the feelings of the past but I knew I wasn’t lonely anymore.
I had been through enough life events and had met some amazing people that taught me everyone has baggage. I let out a cleansing ugly 20 minute cry after getting triggered by the nonsensical Department of Licensing website. I opened my metaphorical box and looked at my adolescence and forgave my parents and my teenage self — we were all doing as best we could to get by. I was done feeling sorry for the teenager I was and was in awe of the the resilient adult that I am. I remembered how liberating it feels to do something that feels so scary and come out the other side. “I can do this.” became my mantra.
There are some perks to learning to drive these days. When I was a teenager YouTube was a place to watch videos like “Leave Britney Alone” and “Keyboard Cat”. Now you can watch real people take their road tests with narration and tips. I watched these videos a lot and read the comments by adults also trying for their license. There are comments from people who had failed their tests multiple times and were still working on it.
When I passed my driver’s test the privilege behind that accomplishment wasn’t lost on me. Remember that like many things in life, the journey is smoother for some than others. When you find out someone doesn’t know how to drive and offer support in lieu of judgement.
Taking control over the wheel helped me take control over narrative of my teenage years. Some say driving is the ultimate freedom. But for me the ultimate freedom was in learning how to integrate the traumas of my life into forward momentum.
