A Girl's Guide To Driving Poorly

Nothing gives me more anxiety than driving.  I hate it and I would be the first one to tell you I'm not very good at it.  I don’t know if these two things are somehow related, but the likelihood that they are is probably pretty good.  Isn't the things we aren't really good at usually the hated ones? Or should it spur some kind of reaction on my part to practice said thing so that I can become better at said thing?  Is that what more accomplished people do, I sometimes wonder, hone in on their flaws so that their life can be a dedication to improve on all the things that hinder that quest for perfection? I must have given up on this ideal a long time ago because I find that I don’t really care all that much about getting better at driving.  I’ve thought about the why in this of couse and it comes down to the fact that there are just too many variables involved.  I have to share the road with many a maniac for one, some potential serial killer or pedophyle or just plain crazy person.  How I am supposed to relax when I’m told that collectively I have to put my trust in such individuals?  Can I really trust that they will stop when told to, will yield when appropriate?  I can't help having a myriad of potentially life threatening outcomes flash before me when I get into my car every morning. Might this be the last time, I can't help but to wonder. And if you think that I’m being overdramatic, I have to respectfully disagree.  There are crazy, overzealously ambitious drivers who are not afraid to slide between me and another car at a moment's notice.  And sometimes you feel very lucky.  Someone might actually show a sliver of what you would consider good will and slow down so that you can merge, but then they suddenly zoom ahead, outrageously laughing that they pulled one over on the anxious slow girl who is now behind them, her heart in her throat, her hands unbearably shaking as she replays what she should have done and all of those what could have been scenarios. And another thing, how much trust should we really put on traffic lights anyway?  What happens if a light suddenly goes out or what if they all land on green?  What would happen then?

To put my driving anxiety in perspective here’s a bit of background information about my journey to drive.  You may think that something terrible must have happened for me to have this much anxiety about what essentially the majority of people in the Unites States are forced to do every day, like I was in some sort of death defying car accident when I was younger where I flew across four lanes of traffic and barely made it out alive.  This wasn't at all the case for me.  I’ve only ever been in two accidents and they were very minor as far as accidents go, so I don’t think it's a buried trauma.  I got my license at 17.  I waited that extra year because for one I was scared, two I didn’t have a car, and three I don’t think my parents really wanted to teach me.  My mother flat out refused, saying that her nerves simply could not handle it and she was the teacher in the family.  Thus, the responsibility fell upon my father, the non teacher.  Now my dad is not a great driver himself and I am not one to allow common sense to shape what I should or should not do, especially during my teenage years.  For example, on one of our practice drives my dad told me to turn left out of a Walmart parking lot, and I did, I did indeed turn left, which put me directly into oncoming traffic.  He failed to mention that I needed to cross to the median.  But should he have really had to explain such a thing to me in the first place?  I do have eyes and a brain, both of which should have been watching the flow of traffic, but alas, that was not the case.

You may be surprised that I passed my driver’s test on the first try, although it was just barely.  My driving examiner was almost too large to fit into my tiny forest green Buick Skylark.  His side stomach rubbed against my arm throughout the entirety of the drive.  He demanded immediate air conditioning as soon as he waddled his way into my car and struggled to get the seat belt over his protruding stomach.  I almost felt like he blamed me for the size of my car, the lack of air conditioning, and his too large gut.  I was shaking of course and sweating, which is a weird combination of physicalities to happen all at once.  By the time we reached the parallel parking portion of the test, I could tell he was already over it and to be honest, so was I.  He gave me about a minute to fail miserably before grunting a few times and then pointing a pudgy finger at the front windshield as he told me to just go ahead already because obviously I wasn’t getting it. But he did pass me nonetheless, maybe just so that he wouldn’t have to see me and my small car again.

Now fast forward to today where I live in a new city.  A city that used to be quite small, but is growing.  It’s growing so fast that right now it’s the 18th fastest-growing metro area in the United Sates, attracting daily approximately 36 new residents.  The two lane highway that was here when I first moved has changed to three lanes and probably needs to change again. Here is a few pictures to show you what I mean, although they do not do it justice to how gridlocked everything can become on the daily.

I’m not aggressive or confident enough to battle this everyday.  That’s the one thing that my driving examiner told the 17 year old version Elizabeth.  You aren’t confident, but that will come with practice.  I’m 44 now and am still not confident and no amount of practice has boosted that driving confidence I'm afraid.  I often wonder where I can buy this confidence because it’s not just in my driving that I lack it, but so many other things as well.  I look at people and wonder how they became confident in the first place and if they can give me just a small amount of what they have.  I don’t really think that’s how confidence works, although I wish it did because then I would probably be better at so many things.

Maybe that confidance will eventually come my way. Maybe there is in fact a magic number in age where everything will click for me. I have always liked to take my own time in most things, why should gaining confidence be any different? But for now, every morning I grip that steering wheel, tightly mutter and then pray for the other drivers to not hit me, and brave highway 49.  When I reach my destination I’m always amazed that I made it all in one piece, without a scratch on my car or person.  Someone must be smiling down on me or maybe I’ve just built up a lifetime of good  karma, whatever it is I am thankful.