Driving.

Driving frightens me. I was never your typical teenager, dying to get behind the wheel. In fact, I failed my first driving test. This was not entirely my fault however. My driving instructor was total nutter butters. She told me that she was thinking about having an affair. She also told me she wished she had followed her dream of learning how to cremate people. She would have specialized in dead children. Um, WHAT?! She never taught me how to parallel park. I could have chosen to take my test in two different towns, one that included parallel parking and one that didn't. Naturally, I chose the place that didn't include parallel parking in the test. Naturally, they added it to the test the very week I went in. The woman administrating the test was TERRIFYING. And mean. She told me I was going to fail as soon as I put my seat belt on. I was trembling. She said I would die with this kind of confidence. My instructor was chuckling in the background. Needless to say, the rest of the test didn't go so well. Lots of meanness and chuckling from them and trembling from me. I had more lessons, this time with a nicer, relatively sane guy. He never discussed dead children which I was quite thankful for. I passed my next exam with flying colors.

I'm really NOT a bad driver. I know how to do it. But I went to college in Boston and for the time I was there I only needed to drive when I came back to visit. And then I moved to New York City. No driving for me there. Now I'm back in the sticks and behind the wheel. I'm so grateful that unlike bike riding, I didn't forget how to drive. It does give me some anxiety though, especially with it being dark at 4pm.I was driving home from work around 5 the other day, tense as can be! There is a car behind me! I can see their lights! Ah! Ah! I'm gripping the wheel. Even the Christmas music was not calming. . It's funny to me that I have no qualms about being stranded in a city at 4am but driving home at 4pm scares me. And I always check my back seat multiple times. What if someone snuck in my car and is sitting there?! That'd be terrible! I drove home a bit later tonight and I was able to ease up a little. I think it was because there was practically no one else on the road. Score! I was able to sing both "Jingle Bell Rock" and "I Will Always Love You" with confidence and pleasure. I forgot how much I enjoy singing in the car. I used to actually be a semi good singer. I think that I'm not as good as I used to be and that must be because I haven't been driving as much. I hope that my time in the sticks will result in a better voice again. Maybe I'll be able to join a chorus!