I was terrified to drive. I never could figure out why. Maybe it was the wreck that I was in at age three, when my Mom let my eleven-year-old sister drive. (My Mom drove pace cars at races when she was 14, so I was definitely the exception to the family 'drive early' tendency.)
Or maybe it was being left-handed, never feeling comfortable on the left side of a car, because the door against my elbow seemed too confining after all those years in right-handed school desks. Even in the back seat, I rode on the right-side. I remember all my classmates freaking out when we took a trip to London, not being used to the cars on the opposite sides of the road, but to me it felt 'correct'.
Maybe it was just a fear of being the one in control, fear of failure, fear of causing a wreck.
At any rate, I never attempted to get my license. I got a permit, and that was it. For ID, I used my passport, which was good until I was 27. After that expired, I got a non-driver ID.
But a few years ago, I decided to take charge of my life. I'd failed at trying to help a friend give up her addiction, and it was very painful. She fought dirty, throwing the non-driver thing in my face. I had to realize the truth of it... what right did I have to pass judgement on anyone else's problems when I always so conveniently ignored my own?
Not long after this, a friend was driving me home from the store in the rain. He is VERY near-sighted, so he never seems to notice that his windshield is smudged. (On occasion I will go out to his car and Windex it for him, inside and out, when he visits.) This night, the oncoming headlights were refracting off the rain and the foggy glass, and it all seemed stupidly dangerous. Why was it easier to trust his obviously inferior vision than to grab the reins of my own life and be responsible for whatever happened?
I had this thought, between there and my driveway... every play I've ever directed, there was always some new skill I had to learn, or some impossible obstacle to overcome. But with a deadline looming, somehow in six-to-eight weeks, I always managed to conquer the skill, overcome the obstacle, pull everything together by sheer force of will. I believed in those abilities. Why didn't I believe in myself about driving?
This was an epiphany. I set myself a deadline. I looked at a calendar when I got home, and it was exactly six weeks until April 14th. Tax day. That would work.
I got a driver's manual. I took the written test again, for the second time since I was a teenager. My kids were at my in-laws, which is only a couple of blocks away, there aren't even any red lights between our houses.
Right after I successfully got my permit, I was due at a theatre board meeting. My wife drove home. The plan was for me to drive to get the boys, and then my wife would drive me to the theatre.
The boys got in the car. My wife offered to trade places. I said, "No, I'm good." I drove across town in real traffic for the first time in my life. They were all very silent as they watched this. When we pulled up in the parking lot, my wife said, "Are you sure you haven't been doing this before?"
Two weeks later, still on the permit, I was so relaxed about my phobia that I suddenly thought, "What was I ever afraid of?" I could not even understand ANY of those excuses I had made for 20+ years, didn't even recognize that thinking as my own.
On April 9th, after *failing the driving test three different times*, I finally passed. I was now a licensed driver... at age 37.
Now, ironically, having been driven around all of my life, I have become the chauffeur. I spend about three hours every weekday dropping off my wife at work and my kids at school, and then picking them up in the afternoon. My youngest son was actually disappointed when he started kindergarten because he didn't get to ride the bus like his brother had.
And yes, I've faced the fear of having a wreck already, with my sons in the car. It happened just a few months after I got the license. Just a little fender-bender. My mother was afraid I would not get back in the saddle, but I pushed through it.
I likened that wreck to my first night on the job when I was a bartender, and I spilled a Tom Collins all over a woman. My manager had the best attitude about it: "Now you can stop worrying about it."
So, I failed at fixing someone with a problem, but I did manage to fix myself. After I conquered that fear, my wife asked what did I want to do with my life now that I had absolute freedom to go anywhere, do anything. I answered "get back into my writing, get back into acting." Within days, I received totally unsolicited emails offering me a chance to write for Star Wars Insider magazine, and a role in a military training film. I've been acting fairly steadily ever since, and sold a second article to the Insider, both of which have been reprinted in the French version of the magazine as well.
And what of the friend with the addiction? Sigh. I don't really know. She was the crucible and the catalyst for this, and we did talk again after she had gotten herself clean and gotten some help. One of those, "You were the only one telling me what was best for me instead of just what I wanted to hear" kind of cathartic talks.
But those scars are so deep, we never can seem to communicate without dredging up pain. The last time we tried to talk was over a year ago, and I wrote something that I thought was a compliment. She took it as an attack, and wrote back in anger. While I was composing a reply, she wrote back an apology. I never completed my draft. I was waiting to figure out what to say and how to say it, and one day you blink and you realize that it's been a year and you still haven't figured out how to articulate it.
I think about her daily, though. I have to.
I drive daily.
And that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't challenged me to prove that PEOPLE CAN CHANGE WHO THEY ARE.
You'll drive when the time is right. When you believe.
All my best,
Alex
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