Learning to Drive
Burned into my memory is my first driving experience. My Dad took me to the high school parking lot with his Nissan Sentra. It would have been fine, with one exception- Dad's car was stick shift. I then preceeded to spend a very jerky 45 minutes in the car. In fact, I have never been in a car that jerked or stalled that much- until two days ago. When I was faced with the same dilemma- almost. The only cars we currently own are stick shift and so it's learn to drive or go without a car. So Brandon and I went to an abandoned parking lot where I proceeded to jerk my way into motion with our Jeep. After about an hour of stopping and starting Brandon decided I needed to drive on the road. Which we did. I stalled. I freaked out. I cried. And I drove. Eventually, after many tears, I flat out refused to drive anymore. And that ended the lesson for the day. Unfortunately, unless I want to be car-less for awhile, the lessons will have to continue. But I might find a new teacher. Like Risha, my ballet teacher, who offered to help me. She has a very calming voice and is very good about asking things like "okay, no one's freaking out are they?" at least in ballet she does.
But this opens me up to a new question: am I ready to make myself look dumb in front of others. This I think is the primary drawback to asking someone besides Brandon to help me learn. I'm afraid of looking stupid. Actually this is the drawback all together. The reason I freaked out was because I was afriad I would look stupid to the other drivers (that and run into them, or stall in the middle of an intersection and have them run into me).
And I keep saying- why didn't I learn to drive in Ohio, where the roads were flat and there were many fewer cars per mile than here?
posted by Laura @ 10:48 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I have recently faced a similar dilemma. I've been debating whether I might want my next car to be a manual shift. It has a few advantages, plus my hazy memories of learning how to drive stick, which I haven't done in about seven years, are of it being kind of fun, once I got the hang of it. But I completely forget how. So my solution was to rent a stick shift vehicle for a while to see how I like it. But I would have to drive it off the rental lot. And Mark probably knows less about driving stick than I do. So I would have to humiliate myself in front of other drivers as well. Which is not an appealing prospect, as you know.
Of course, I have no intimations of EVER driving stick, so you're both way ahead of me. The fear of looking stupid has prevented me from doing a lot of things. I have never cried so much as when I was learning to do the stupid maneuverability part of the driving test. We're so used to learning new things quickly that we tend to freak out when something isn't easy. And since our identities are built on being "smart" we fear situations in which that smart might fail us.
Daddy said oh so helpfully: "Driving has nothing to do with being smart. Look at all the stupid people in the world who drive!"
Thank god driving doesn't have to do with being smart. But I'm still praying (yes literally praying) that we will sell both stick shift cars and get something automatic. (Please dear God!) K-dog is probably right though-I could see where it would be fun... but only after having mastered it.
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