(no subject)

[felicula]

Holy Fuck I did it...

It may sound stupid. It may sound weird. Call me a freak or whatever. I'm turning 28 soon and still haven't got my drivers license.

When I was in high school, I took driver's ed. I didn't like practicing driving with my dad in the car, though. Suffice it to say that he seemed to think it should be a lot more natural to me than my body did. I knew I wasn't ready for my test then. My dad said, "Hey, whenever you want to practice driving..." then didn't mention it much again.

Being a child blessed with doing a lot of other things naturally and slacking at what didn't come easy, I let it slide.

A few years ago, I decided I ought to get my license to be more independent. I finally renewed my permit and took a five hour course. I started driving once in a while to practice. A friend of a friend even took me out to work on 3 point turns and parallel parking. My mistake there was ceasing after getting it right once.

I should have kept going after that until I had it in my muscles, until my brain could stop and let my body do it's job without worried interference. I knew I wasn't ready for the test, so I let it slide.

Thing is, this spring / summer I took the initiative to really go back to college in the fall, to restart with what I know now about life and work and myself. Aidan's going into full-day Kindergarten. For the first time, all three of us will have our own schedules to work with. As an exercise in organization, I made up day planning sheets to see where our schedules meshed and where they didn't. With every Wednesday and Thursday I wrote out from early September to mid January, it hammered into my head how there was plenty of time if I had use of the car, but not enough time if I had to ride the bus.

I found a core of determination so deep inside of me. I found the place in there where it switched from, "It's OK to let this slide," to, "There is no way in any possible world that I can afford to put this off any longer." My laziness has dug quite a hole. All this time has blown my anxiety over this one test all out of proportion. I've been procrastinating on this for ten years. A decade, maybe more, I've looked the other way, putting down my abilities and admonishing myself that I wasn't ready.

I guess I've finally gotten it into my thick skull that I'll never be ready for the test. Not as ready as possible. I will only be as ready as I will be. It's OK to not be ready, so long as I know what I'm doing and am observant, detailed in my execution of the necessary maneuvers, courteous of the examiner, and manage to remaind calm.

What I'm most worried about are keeping an eye on all signs, parallel parking, and trying to remain calm enough. My anxiety can be bad enough without the years of procrastination. I didn't even realize consciously how worried I was about Aidan's Kindergarten registration before we actually went. My hands wouldn't remain steady and neither would my voice. Now here I am, facing the test I've been scared of for so long on Wednesday. This coming Wednesday. 3pm.

Just scheduling and doing the planning necessary had me in tears a couple times. They were the kind that had no real reason other than being a symptom of facing something I'm absolutely terrified of on a level that I have trouble facing consciously. My nerves shot through the roof yesterday. I talked my mother-in-law's ear off about it, losing track of how many times she told me gently to relax. I thought I'd danced that out of my system last night at Vertex.

Today the nerves were right back. I want to do all I can to be prepared for the test, but not succeeding at calming down about it. So far I haven't yet performed a road-test-passable parallel parking job. Today, one of my attempts resulted in my bumping into the car I was parking behind. Not badly. No dents, no paint off, the people on the porch didn't even come over to complain at me. It shook me up though. I pulled over to the side and just let out my nerves in tears.

I did more practice this evening, but by that time, mechanchaos was tired enough not to be a very attentive instructor. He's put up with a lot from me over this. No more bumping anything other than curb, but the curb bumping was happening all too often.

If I keep practicing eventually I'll get it right, right?

I've been wondering if it would be unwise to try to get in a professional lesson before Wednesday.

I'm not dead set on needing a lesson like that. Tomorrow I intend to make a thorough review of the driver's manual section on parallel parking before going out for more practice. Believe me, I'm not trying to skimp on the practice. Part of me wants to try to find excuses not to do the part I fear most. I've been barreling through that, though. It's an anxiety. No, I haven't seen a counselor about it. It sounds just as intense as other anxieties I've heard about. I have every intention of demanding as much practice time as I can get in tomorrow without exhausting myself or mechanchaos. I'm just trying to plan in case doing that won't be enough to get it in my system enough to do a passable job consistently.

I know that in general I'm a good driver. I also know that if my anxiety kicks in like it did when we put in Aidan's kindergarten registration, then I'll need everything going for me that I possibly can. I cannot afford to fail this test, but I'm fighting my insides as much as I'm working on the actual driving and test. It's strong enough that my hands shake and my voice doesn't stay steady. Sometimes it's strong enough that I lose control of my emotions and end up crying. I'm not proud of it. It's something I need to deal with, something I need to work through.

At the moment I'm still wired enough to keep me awake. I can feel exhaustion around the edges, though. I wanted to write a necessary email to my dad before bed, but that turned into writing out what's pouring through my brains.

I don't really expect folks to really want to read through all that. I just needed some mental expectoration. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I know what I need to review and practice before Wednesday. I'll likely even be doing some prayer to a few different appropriate deities. Relax. Heh...

Comments

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

I worry about the fact that you're this worked up about it, and that you're putting this much pressure on yourself.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I worry about that too. I guess the blanket statement would be, "I worry."

As rambly as this post was, it isn't the whole picture. It isn't all that goes on under the surface of my thoughts. This post was mostly "mental expectoration", that is - trying to blast out the thoughts in my head that wouldn't let me get to sleep while trying out some self-analysis.

I'm glad you and I talked on IM today. I can't stress that enough. It takes a lot to just plow right through one of my "nerve spikes" to get to the point where I could really say what I was trying to say without having reactions in brain activity and stress level.

I've been fluctuating between handling this well and handling it rather poorly. I'm trying to work toward being healthy about it. I'm just not consistantly in a healthy place with it on a conscious level. The silly thing is, I'm geting more fear related adrenaline pouring through me every hour than I used to get in a day full of intimidating roller coasters.

I'm trying to devise some kind of reward for myself if I get through it relatively calmly. The reward if I pass is, well, getting my license, which I need to do sooner than later even if I don't. Any suggestions?