The road ahead

I’ll admit it. I can’t drive. It’s not that I drive badly; it’s that apart from a plastic fire engine when I was 5, I have never been behind the wheel of an automobile.
A conflicting mixture of fear and good old-fashioned laziness has gotten me to this shameful point in my life. To be a senior in high school without a license brings a definite stigma. Underclassmen routinely ask me why I still ride the school bus, and their eyebrows raise at my usual string of excuses.
All of these justifications are white lies to the others and, when it comes right down to it, to myself. But I’m not afraid of driving. The truth is, I think that I’m afraid of having to grow up and be self-reliant, to get along without rides from my parents or friends. I have just a few more months before college, and then all I’ve ever known will be gone forever. Nobody will be there to keep track of me but myself, and the idea of that scares me much more than I like to admit.
I have dreamed of driving my whole life. I have always loved car rides – I could not wait until I could have that feeling of motion and power imbued by steering wheel. It would be the ultimate triumph to drive a car: a right of passage. Grown-ups have houses and jobs and drive cars. I used to want that when I was little, before I knew better.                                                                             I know that some teenagers are in a hurry to grow up, to watch their childhoods fade away in the rearview mirror. But once it’s over there’s a big, cold world out there. Your parents don’t need you to call to tell them that you arrived safe, and nobody really cares if you get where you’re going.
I’ll probably manage the foot traffic from class to class and maybe, if I have the time, I can actually enjoy myself. Undergraduate, grad school, the work force… what will I do with myself from one stop light to another? Will I ever get behind the wheel of my own destiny? I could be a backseat driver all my life or finally muster up the courage to turn the key on my own. But what if I just can’t drive? I bet that’s happened before. Somebody who couldn’t drive a car or her life, no matter how many times she tried and failed.
So then I won’t fail.
Every time I ding the paint, I’ll get a little better. It may take years and many excruciating hours of practice, but sooner or later I will get the hang of the twists and turns on my path. There is no choice and failure is not an option. I’ve decided that now.
I’ll always remember the roads I took to get where I’m headed, wherever that might be. One day, very soon now, I will pick up a map and drive away, but today I’m fine with taking the bus while I still can.

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