Different free
There have been a handful of times in my life that I didn’t realize how I was feeling until the feelings stopped. Like not knowing I hated myself because I couldn’t stop eating, until I quit sugar and I stopped eating compulsively. Or not knowing how stressed I was about money and being poor, until I was no longer poor. And it turns out driving is one of those things.
When I left New York City in my mid 30s, I did not know how to drive. And there were a lot of reasons for that. Most notably that I used to have nightmares as a little kid, from the time I was 4 or 5, about having to drive and not knowing how. And I had built driving up to be a very scary thing. (I’m sure there is plenty of it in these here archives. I was already writing this blog for years when I learned to drive.) so when I moved to New York City at 21, I was relieved I was never going to have to learn how to drive.
But about 11 years ago I did learn how to drive at 38. Since then I have driven all over the country alone. I can enjoy the time in the car with an audiobook. I don’t hate driving.
But I really do hate having to drive. I hate the experience of having to do anything that requires a car. I don’t really even know what it is that I don’t like. Because I am so grateful to both have a car and know how to drive. For my own sense of freedom. For my own ease of getting around. And to be able to live anywhere. Because the other side of not knowing how to drive in NYC also made me know I was “stuck” there.
Now I live in the city because I choose it. I could live in the suburbs. I have done it.
It is so much easier for me to get out of the house if I don’t have to drive. It feels like so much less of an ordeal to do anything if I don’t have to take the car. I ran 2 errands in less than twenty minutes the other day. Just the driving would have taken me more than 20 minutes in our old house.
I needed to learn how to drive. I am grateful I had over a decade to get comfortable. To stop being afraid of it, to have the basic skill most Americans need, and to have real freedom. I have no regrets about needing to learn and following through.
Anyway, I haven’t driven in over a week and I feel a different kind of free.
onceafatgirl 