My boyfriend has a disease that causes him a lot of pain and discomfort and inconvenience. Sometimes he would cancel plans because he was in too much pain, or didn’t feel like making the drive down to see me if we had plans.
This man is the most amazing person, and I look up to him, and he’s always going to be hurting, for the rest of his life. Knowing I was adding to his already full plate was what finally catapulted me. I made a phone call after my 25th birthday to set up another round of driving lessons with a school in the next town over. They were booked for a month, so I had to call again on the 1st. I scheduled six or seven appointments, a few in a row. I wanted to make sure I was really ready.
The first few driving lessons I was so scared. I couldn’t tell where the car was, where I was on the road, how close I could come to things on the street, I just had no concept of the space around me. But the instructors were trying their best to keep me calm, and although I hit the gas instead of the brake a few times nothing terrible happened.
Over the next few months I worked in as many classes as I could and tried to get better. In a stroke of brilliance, I realized my little sister was no longer using her 2003 Honda Civic that was sitting at my grandparents’ house, and realized I should immediately offer to buy it from her since she had moved to Florida and didn’t even need it.
Of course in my state you can’t buy a car until you have a driver’s license, so I made her an offer she accepted and we started working on getting it into my name.
A few lessons in, my driving school told me it was time to start thinking about scheduling the test. Oh lord. My actual driving test. I was still in shock that I was routinely driving cars at that point, but they said it’s best to schedule the test for a date very soon after your last driving lesson. Like the day after.
So we scheduled another couple of lessons and then, when we got the test date back we set up one more double lesson the day before. For that lesson I met the driver right at the test site and we spent both hours repeating the test over and over again. As we were pulling into a parking lot I hit the gas instead of the brake and scared both of us, but he had the brake down so all I was hurting was the car.
It was an awful day. I went home crying, knowing that no matter how much I practiced I’d always panic and hit the wrong pedal. I’m going to kill someone. There are kids in the cars around me. Children. Babies. Someone’s going to get hurt.
I called my boyfriend that night and cried and cried. I can’t do this. There’s a reason I didn’t do this, and it’s because I can’t do this. I knew this was a bad choice. I knew I wasn’t ready and now look at me, I’ve cried all my makeup off, I’ve embarrassed myself in front of my driving instructor, I’ve spent all this money on driving lessons again for no reason, and I still don’t know how to hit the right pedal.
He listened to me for a while and I could tell that he knew how much pain I was in. He didn’t really say anything inspiring or groundbreaking, but just getting it all out there was a huge help.
There was no way I could just not take the test, so I decided fine, I’ll go, I’ll pay the money, I’ll get the feedback, and I’ll retake when I’m ready.
My test was scheduled for very very early in the morning. My little sister – whose car I was buying – came to pick me up and bring me to the test site, where my test instructor was going to let me use his car.
We were almost late, but when we arrived we waited for maybe two hours as the testing was behind schedule. My heart was beating out of my chest. I was cold and hot and sweating and my mouth was dry.
Most of the other testers were sixteen year olds, but there were a few people like me.
And the worst part – not one single person rode the car back up to the lot and got out looking happy or excited. Most of the girls were getting out crying. One guy, who had ridden there on his motorcycle, was failed. That made me certain I wasn’t getting my license today. If a man, older than me, who drove here with a license on the actual road was failed, there was no way I’m passing.
I turned to my sister, who also noticed how many people were failing their tests, and she looked just as worried as I am. I had always heard that with your driver’s license test it was just a matter of what kind of tester you got, the nice kind who understood that kids get nervous, and the kind that don’t want any more stupid teenagers on the road.
Oh well.
Over the next few hours we watched girls and boys in droves hop in the car, pull out of the parking lot, pull back in, and get out looking deflated. “It’s not likely you’ll pass the first time,” people had said to me, “most don’t.” One girl was crying. The test administrator seemed to be looking more and more frustrated and impatient as time wore on.
Eventually my driving instructor summoned me out of the car where I was waiting. I grabbed my bag with my permit and got out of the car. I felt like I was walking on the sun. I was nervous, I felt like I might pass out or throw up. I pulled out my permit and sat down. I got buckled, adjusted my mirrors, and set my wheel straight.
The old gentleman sat down in the passenger’s seat and asked for my permit, and then ran me through the test. I made one mistake but corrected it immediately, and I was driving straight and at good speeds. When we pulled back up he said to me,
“You were past that stop sign when you stopped back there. They’ll fail you for that.” He said it in a very unfriendly way, and that’s when I knew I failed.
“Yes sir,” is all I could think of to say. It’s okay, I thought to myself as I started to feel tears forming behind my eyes. We knew it wasn’t going to be today. We knew we needed more time.
“I’m going to give you a pass today, but I could fail you for that. Remember that. You have to stop behind the line.”
What? It was like his words weren’t real or I had imagined them. He began scribbling on my permit.
“Be careful on the road. You’re not an underage driver, but still be careful.”
In an absolute trance I said something like, “Thank you very much sir, I’ll be more careful in the future. Thank you for your feedback.” He handed me my permit – now a temporary driver’s license – and I got out of the car.
Wordlessly I started across the parking lot until I could just see my sister’s face. She was looking right at me and I didn’t want to cause a huge scene or seem like I was rubbing it in the faces of the little kids around, so all I did was nod.
I saw her freak out in the car, and other people standing around noticed too and looked excited. But some of the kids were still crying. I barely felt a thing. I have to call my boyfriend!!! I have to call my dad!! I have to call my mom! I have to call my ex-husband! I have to call my grandparents!!
I was happier than I had been in a long, long time. It was one of the only times in my very introverted life that I wished I had more people to share this with. I was just super grateful that my sister was there.
The girl and her mom in the car next to ours were looking over and I told them it was okay, if you stay calm you’ll be fine, you got this. I wish I could have thought of something more to tell her. She looked like she was nervous.
I hadn’t felt so shocked in my life that something had happened. You have to understand – this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t something that was supposed to happen. I felt like I had switched dimensions or something.
My whole life felt upside down.