A License to Drive

  So… something that is interesting about my life is that at the age of 23 I still only have a driving learner’s permit. Meaning that for  all of my teenage years and now the entirety of my adult life so far, I haven’t had the full ability to drive legally. Now, that may seem weird and even a little sad, but there is another layer to this. Even though I can’t really drive, I’ve never really had to. Let’s go back to when I was in high school, the typical point in most people’s lives where they learn to drive. I went to a boarding school. What that means is that I took all of my stuff and lived in a dormitory on campus. I never had to leave campus for food as we had a dining hall. Living on campus meant I had access to a gym, library, mail, and even the professors. All without ever needing to go farther than what walking would provide. There was even shuttle service to and from the airports during breaks as well as transportation provided to many places off campus like malls, grocery stores, and movie theaters. There was even a thing where on campus students weren’t allowed to drive cars on campus. This, combined with a lack of a student driving program led to me never actually beginning the process for those four years. The summers were really the only time I felt the lack of being able to drive. I would spend time going between Boston and Connecticut and the two places I lived were very different. In Boston, I had very easy access to the subway which let me go virtually anywhere I wanted in the city, +/- a little walking distance. I never really needed a car here. In Connecticut, that is a little bit of a different story. I live in a neighborhood, somewhat isolated from the actual town. The nearest supermarket was like a 15 minute drive, meaning that when I would drive down either with a driver that my parents hired, or with my parents themselves, we would have to bulk buy groceries to last for the entire time I stayed there. I also had to be the unfortunate one who was picked up to go to places whenever my friends and I did things down there. I did feel a little bad because I was always someone’s extra stop to and from the gatherings and I had to wait for other people to leave before I could leave myself. The silver lining was that my house was also made the gathering spot for parties often and it made one less car to play tetris with in driveways. So, double edged sword, I did consider the idea for a while yet it never felt like a priority meaning I kept putting it off. It was also compounded upon by the fact that my parent’s car in the states broke down and was basically out of commission for a few years, meaning that even if I did have a license in those years, I wouldn’t even have a working car unless I went out of my way to rent one. Did it feel weird to be the only one in my friend group who didn’t drive? Of course it did, but if I go back to school, suddenly I’m in the majority. On campus life just never really needed it, and a lot of friends at the time didn’t get their licenses either. 

Fast forward to me being in college, Brandeis University is much like my boarding school. It has almost everything you need on campus including direct access to the Boston Commuter rail, regular buses that go into town and the city, and food/other facilities on campus. This would further contribute to me not ever really needing to go through the process of being able to drive. I think this would only ever come up during my last two years where only one of my room mates had a car on campus, but whenever went out he would want to drink so we ended up just ubering everywhere. Other people could drive, but they would all want to drink leaving me, the perfect designated driver, not actually able to drive. That part made me feel little worse, ubers are kinda expensive and it definitely would’ve saved us a few dollars if I had been able to drive. It didn’t really matter in the end since we were splitting them like five to six ways most of the time, but just something to think about. 

It’s a different story now though, I did finally put in the effort to get my permit and am now on track to attempt the road test sometime in the winter/spring. Taking the written test was pretty nerve wracking because of how much pressure I had to get it right for all the plans to make sense, but I was proud of it nonetheless. Out of all of the things I’ve had to figure out during COVID, this was most certainly one of them and it’s a big step towards keeping my life on track going into the “real” adult part of my life. Now comes the silly part of figuring out what car I will be driving when we get to that point.

If you were excited to see the continuation of the rain story from yesterday I’m sorry for disappointing you. I will be coming back to it at some point because I do want to finish it, but today wasn’t that day. Some personal news from today is that I also was able to successfully finish an omelet for the first time. I didn’t take a picture so this is a “trust me bro” moment for now. Maybe I’ll get the next one. Despite the detour, this is still something that’s pretty personal to me and I’m definitely grateful if you’ve taken the time to read this. I’ll be back again tomorrow and I will see you then.