Driving

When she was a little girl Adrianna was obsessed with driving and couldn't wait until she got her license. She'd spend hours playing Pole Position and would always ask for a Power Wheel, something I couldn't afford then and which was not practical for apartment living, either.

She'd ask about cars, draw cars, play more Pole Position, want to visit friends whose parents weren't monsters and got them Power Wheels, and would ask questions about driving techniques. And, of course, we had the go-kart track.

The summer of her 15th year she and I did a self-run driving course that was offered. The parent would have to fill out all these forms and complete all these checklists, the kid performing various tasks such as parallel parking, merging on a highway, the ever-important three-point turn, etc.

|It was fun, and we did it all in a manual transmission car, so she had to learn how to shift and the clutch as well. I always thought this was an important life skill, and I also figured having to shift gears would prevent her from being on the phone or whatever since both hands would be occupied.

She did well.

However, as the years went by she started to like driving less and less. It scared her, and she started dreading having to do so. The onset of the COVID years in 2020 just exasperated this, and she’d have mini panic attacks when she had to drive alone. After her medical event of 2024 she stopped driving completely, because now she also had the fear that maybe she’d pass out again, and maybe the next time she’d be driving with her boys in the car. This terrified her.

However, recently earlier this year she had expressed a desire to start driving again. She asked me if I could drive with her and do the lessons all over again so she could regain her confidence, and I told her we would. She saw this as a way to start to move forward again, to become the self-sufficient person she always had been. A not-so-small significant step towards rejoining life as it were.

Of course, that never happened, and it’s another thing I feel bad about. Maybe I should have tried to gently push her last year to start driving again, but for me it was always difficult to know how hard to push her. She pushed herself, usually, and I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I did tell her I’d be here as her driving coach whenever she was ready.

Here's a video of terrible quality from before the HD days of one of our driving sessions 20 years ago almost to the day. She does well with me in the passenger seat and Cindy in back playing the part of camera man. I love it.

And when I went to my YouTube channel to get the URL I noticed that she had commented on the video three years ago:

“You were so patient with me! We need to try again, like I relearn.”

I never saw this comment until now.

Adri Learning to Drive