My Driving Experience

     In my lifetime, I have been lucky enough to not have had a lot of terrifying experiences. I have not those fight-or-flight times where instinct completely takes over, or where my nerves and adrenaline would race 1000 times per second. Because of my lack of these experiences, I find life's small tests to be more difficult than most, I'm assuming. For example, when I attended speech class, now almost a year ago, the entire week leading up to my speeches were full of anxiety, stress, and sleepless nights. Now, I'm sure that those with extreme test anxiety will know exactly what I'm talking about, the feeling that you just might die if and when the time comes that you actually have to go and prove yourself. Well, since that class, I've been fortunate enough not to have had that incredibly anxious feeling, at least, up until last week.
     Last week, I had a sleepless night full of tossing and turning, only broken up by nightmares, that led up to my dreaded road test. Now you're probably thinking that one sleepless night doesn't seem like much, and it's not. However, the countless nights that I haven't been able to sleep that have been scattered over the past two years, have been too much.
     To give you all a bit of backstory, I started my driver's ED classes when I was 16, the age that most people expected me to already have my license. I went into these classes with an apparent fear of driving, but hopeful that stepping my foot into the world of independent driving would ease my fear. Fortunately, my driver's ED class proved to be just that: an experience that was full of learning, real-world driving experience, and even an added bonus of having a great friend as a driving buddy. I was enjoying everything about driving, even if I wouldn't remember to breathe throughout my hour and a half sessions. Obviously, something had to change between now and then, of course, or there would be no story to tell.
     On my final driving day with my driving instructor, the day that we were to tackle the highway and parking, that initial fear kicked back in, and even harder than before. To make me feel even better about myself, the fear was not only not triggered by the fast-paced highway, but instead, it was parking. I found parking so ridiculously difficult, more specifically, reverse parking so difficult, that even my driving instructor decided after 15 minutes of me attempting and failing, that maybe it was time to move on, because we were running out of the lesson's time. From then on, my mom would have to physically sit me down in the driver's seat of our car and lovingly, but firmly, make me drive to school, because without that push, I would do anything to avoid the scariest place in the world: the open road. This fear and hastily avoiding driving at any chance I got, continued for the following two years, until June of this year.
     My way of thinking was getting to a point where I realized that I only had a few months left of summer until I went off to college, and it was time. So, for the following two months, I practiced my driving skills, and hard, at that. Anywhere my mom needed driven for errands, I was her personal chauffeur. Pushing through my fear was very difficult, but the inner push of racing before a deadline was my inner motivation. I didn't want to be that one girl at college that still didn't have her license.
Soon enough, my road test did come, and the thought of that test was scary. On a Monday morning, I showed up to the testing site, knowing very well that this was either going to be the best day of my life, or the most embarrassing.
     The parking portion of my test came first, and I knew that if I could pass this section, the section that re-instilled my fear of driving, then I would easily pass the road portion. "Here we go," I thought. "it's now or never." Seconds later, in my side mirror, the worst happened...I knocked over a cone on the dreaded reverse parking. I had just practiced this before we came, so I was absolutely gutted that I hadn't been able to accurately show my skills. Next was parallel parking, something that I had always done very well on. And again, I hit two cones. The feeling in my stomach was miserable. I knew I had failed, so as the examiner came around to speak to me, I was preparing for the worst. However, when I rolled down the window, the woman smiled and said that I had passed the portion and that we were to begin the road test. My mind was in a blur! I knew the parking portion had allowed for some errors, but I thought I had done too badly to continue. From then on, the actual road test went even smoother than I had hoped, so thirty minutes later, after I pulled back into the testing site, I was able to ecstatically give my mom the great news: I passed my driving test! I was able to go to the DMV that day to apply for my license, and a week later, I received my shiny new license in the mail.
     I am proof that even if you're scared, whether it be as specific as my fear of the road test, or just a test in general, you can push through that fear and make it out the other side. There is always going to be another test that life hands you, so do your best to get through them. And, if you fail, take it again. You'll make it through to the other side, and when you do, you'll be a stronger person for it.