This Car Is Fuelled by Anxiety

“It’s just a few blocks- You don’t drive?”
“Driving is so easy!”
“Does it bother you that you don’t drive?”
“The bus sucks though!”
“You’ll need your license if you live on your own.”
“It’s good to have in case of an emergency!”

Above are some examples of comments I’d heard on a loop for eleven years – until I did get my license to drive a car. Eleven years. That probably sounds pathetic to some people. Some people make you feel pathetic for not driving. So I suggest you drop those people out of your life. Then keep reading for my story on how I managed to get my license.

First off, my driving instructor would probably backhand slap me for telling you I had driving anxiety- and so I’ll tell you now that I’m using the word lightly. I am lucky in the sense that I have (knock on wood) never experienced a panic attack – nor completely shut down because of anxiety. When I say “anxiety” here I mean the unpleasant feeling of your stomach in knots over having to face something you’re very hesitant to face. So you hesitate and you put things off because you feel anxious about it. You get stuck in your own head and start overthinking. My driving instructor was great at yanking me back out of my own head. “Why are you overthinking the littlest things!?” I have no idea. But I’ve literally been told I overthink everything my whole life. Driving wasn’t the exception.

Overthinking is exactly why driving was and is so difficult for me. It’s fast paced, there are hundreds of signs everywhere and other drivers on the road have such little patience or compassion for others who may not be the most confident of drivers. “If you’re not a confident driver then don’t drive”, they might say. Yes, unpleasant fellow human, I wish I didn’t have to drive either, but unfortunately Winnipeg isn’t exactly known for its excellent means of transportation, is it? We don’t have an underground system, cabbing will put you in debt, and our city transit buses excel in turning up at the most inconvenient moments – late, early, but rarely on time. More often than not you miss your connection and so you compensate by leaving earlier in the morning to ensure getting to work on time just in case your first connection isn’t made. Have you ever stood outside in -35 weather for over 45 minutes waiting for a bus because the first one never showed?

I have. Been there, done that and still doing it. The thing is – I like taking the bus (sans crazy people). I just hate waiting for the bus.

In short, unpleasant fellow human, I wish I didn’t have to drive either, but until proper public transportation is put into place I’m kind of in a situation where I have to. You see, I’m also a teacher. For anyone who isn’t a teacher this means I almost always have literal bags of stuff I’m toting to and from work on any given day. Don’t ask me what’s in the bags, because honestly, sometimes I don’t even know? Papers? Someone’s missing shoe? Fifteen rolls of sparkly ribbon?

Driving is borderline necessary for me some days. It’s not fun bringing your backpack, a duffle bag and an IKEA bag of stuff onto the bus. Believe me, I’ve done it. It’s not impossible, it’s just cramped and cuts off the circulation in your legs.

I needed to get my license, and so I enlisted in driving lessons, but that didn’t make being behind the wheel any less stressful. I’d have to pee about a dozen times before each lesson occurred, be on the verge of throwing up and chewing gum so aggressively my jaw would ache after the lesson was over. Again, though, my driving instructor never let anything get to me too much once we were on the road. When I make mistakes – as little as they can be – I get all red in the face and start to cry. I’m not sure why, when or how this started, but I hate making mistakes; the world is literally ending. My instructor would snap me back to reality though. “Don’t do that or again or I’ll smack you,” she’d chide jokingly and then we’d continue cracking jokes and discussing 80s bands and people who drive with troll dolls lined up on their dashboards. She was great at making interesting conversation which made everything for me that much easier, because in order to respond accurately, my attention also has to be focused on what she was saying. Not all of my attention was fixated on the road, so my brain couldn’t go into overdrive. Ha. Overdrive. Get it?

On the day of my road test my evaluator had just failed the person ahead of me. He mentioned that said person hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot. My heartrate increased tenfold. I think I turned ALL the switches and lights on out of nerves when he asked me to test the right blinker. How we even got out of the holding unit I don’t recall, but I managed to make it to the parallel parking portion of the test and parked decently on the second attempt (my own call to try again when I felt I had messed up the first time).

I talked to myself the entire ride, because 1. this dude didn’t seem to enjoy others’ company (and hey, I can relate as an introvert, but there’s a difference between being a humbug and being a decent human being), and 2. talking myself through the different tasks kept me on track.

At some point a bunch of crows were in the road, and I have this thing about birds. They freak me out. I also don’t think they’ll move unless I honk at them. …So I honked the horn to make them get out of the way, and I think just maybe the evaluator gave me the most bizarre look he’s ever cast toward anyone, but I didn’t pay enough attention to confirm this as fact.

I honked the horn, I looped into a round-about, I made some right and left hand turns, I properly entered and exited intersections and most importantly I didn’t hit anyone or anything. Somehow we made it back to our destination and he informed me that I’d passed with 4 errors.

I cried.

Out of relief that I wouldn’t have to go through another road test, mainly, because I couldn’t care less about the “actually having a license to drive” part. I was just glad I wouldn’t have to work myself up over more driving tests.

I drove very minimally after getting my license. I didn’t even drive my family to the theatre to celebrate my success by going to see ‘IT’ (my choice of film) on the day of. I had done what I had set out to do and what others’ had expected of me. I had my license in case of emergencies. Great.

Then a few months short of a year later I moved out. Now, living on your own comes with more responsibilities, obviously. One of those new responsibilities being grocery shopping and running boring errands. There was no way I was going to tote around bags of groceries by bus or foot home.

So I bought my first car. This cute little thing that I like to call ‘Roland’. ‘Roland Driver’ if you want to get formal. ‘Rollie’ if you want to get real cute.

Thankfully my new car is mega easy to drive and I almost instantly was at ease driving it around. Learning to drive to the grocery store was pretty straightforward. Learning to drive to my parents’ house was a bit more daunting a feat, but I’m now comfortable making that miniature journey alone. I’m still building the confidence to drive to and from work following a different route and I’m still needing to learn to drive to one of my best friends’ place. See, I learn best by doing. So the first time I drive somewhere new it’s best I have someone else in the car to navigate for me. Once I’ve done that a couple times I’m usually ok to take the route on my own. Just like everyone in life, really. As we teachers would like to yell into your ear holes: the Optimum Learning Model!!!!! I do, we do, you do.

I’m so jealous of people that find driving so simple. They don’t panic about it and they can easily get into their car and drive off. For me it’s like a ritual.

1. Triple check that the car doors are locked and the mirrors are still in the same position they were left in (it’s just me driving my car…).

2. Make sure I’m chewing gum.

3. Make sure I have something playing that makes me feel at ease. Usually it’s pop punk or rock. Bonus points if Simple Plan, Queen or My Chemical Romance starts playing at random.

4. Breathe.

5. Pretend I’m a confident (I mean, this is just an everyday life tip, really) driver.

Then I drive. More often than not it goes just fine and I arrive back home wondering why exactly driving freaks me out so much. If I make the slightest error I will rack my brain about it for days and avoid driving at all costs.

It’s an ongoing battle. It might always be an ongoing battle. I don’t foresee me ever loving driving, but if I keep forcing myself to do it I’m at least hoping it won’t feel so nerve-racking.

I think what most people need to understand is: 1. You need to have a lot, a lot, a lot of patience with me. I’ll get there, but basically, just like with everything in my life, it’ll take twice as long for me to get there. And 2. Busing really isn’t as bad as everyone makes you think it is. I enjoy it. It’s the one time in my day where I get to sit back and crack open a book, or listen to a new record, or actually write something. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.

I don’t think this provided you with any kind of advice. If anything I hope it made you feel a bit better if you’re a nervous driver, to know that there is an equally or even more nervous driver than you out there who did manage to get her license.

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