lifebeyondexaggeration

For my sixteenth birthday my mother gave me a bumper sticker that read “Clear the road! I’m Sixteen!” and took me to get my learner’s permit. I was so excited to drive! Until I got to the actual driving part. That was terrifying and ended in fights and tears every time. I was too afraid to merge. I would almost get us all killed. My mother would yell. It was a vicious cycle. So, I stopped trying to drive.

I went to college in Oklahoma and couldn’t use my out-of-state permit, so even though some of my friends and my boyfriend all wanted to teach me to drive, they couldn’t. I was secretly thrilled. If my own mother wanted to kill me when I drove her car, what would my friends do?

I left Oklahoma without driving. I went to Rhode Island and worked at Astors Beechwood Mansion. They had a Model A Ford kit car that people could drive around town advertising the living history. Even this very old-school convertible could not tempt me to learn how to drive.

But finally, my sweet fiancé got food poisoning. Horrible, nasty, three-day-long food poisoning. And I couldn’t drive to the store to buy him ginger ale. That was the kick in the pants I needed. We got me a new permit for the state we were currently working in, and my fiancé taught me how to drive. I think it proves we were meant to be together that we were planning a wedding, he was teaching me to drive, and we were working twelve hours a day, six days a week, and still managed to make it to the altar.

At twenty-three, I finally got my license just about two weeks before my wedding. I then knocked the side mirror off the car, but hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?
For my lovely followers: I have decreed that Monday blog posts shall now go up in the evening instead of in the morning. Nobody likes Monday mornings anyway.