learn to drive

It has been months since I really had to drive anywhere…

The job that was I temping at last summer just called me in for a job interview and it’s going to happen in 2 days. I plan to practice tonight when my husband get’s home. I’m a little shakey since I feel like I’m out of practice, but I think once I get the hang of it, I’ll feel better about it.

Another thing that makes me a little nervous is that I’ll be practicing at night. The roads here are really bad, you can’t even see the lines during the day. And at night, a lot of the areas don’t even have street lights…and the areas that do, have those amber lights that don’t light very well.

Yesterday, I was notified that I need to work on a temp assignment next week. The money is pretty good, but the catch is that I will have to work onsite. This may eventually lead to more project opportunities in the future for me. So, I accepted it.

This also means I would have to DRIVE there by myself all of next week! I’m still pretty nervous about it and have mapped out all the back roads so that I won’t have to go on the freeway or the busier areas in town.

So today, I made more trips, driving back and forth to the grocery store just to get the feel of being behind the wheel. By the 5th time, I wasn’t as nervous because I was pretty familiar with the road. For me, as long as I know where I’m going and where I’ll be turning ahead of time, that kind of calms my anxiety down. At the end of the day, we made one trip to the office location where I’ll be working next week just so that I can take notes of which streets to take. I didn’t drive, but my husband did.

Tomorrow, we will go out and practice driving to and from the workplace at different times of the day just so that I can get the hang of it.

I’m a bit nervous thinking about it, but I can only take one step at a time. My husband (who was really patient and a good teacher) was telling me to just think of the next step or task I would need to do next. Instead of thinking of my final destination, think of which turn or stop sign is coming up. That way, I won’t feel as overwhelmed.

One thing I don’t like about the roads here in Las Vegas, is there’s a lot of ongoing construction and building. A lot of the streets aren’t even clearly marked. There will be times that I’ll be driving on a multi-laned street with absolutely no lines or markings on the road to indicate where the lanes are. I know I’ll need to get over that, and the more I drive on those roads, the more familier I’ll become, which means the less I’ll be nervous.

My friend was in town last weekend visiting from Houston. To show her the sites around town, she ended up driving, while I navigated. I know…pretty pathetic on my part…

But after that…something just clicked in me. I am more determined than ever that I want to meet this goal. But I can only do it in my own pace though.

Earlier this week, I drove to and from the grocery store again. And today, I went about 20 miles over towards Pahrump…but decided to turn around when I saw lightening storms ahead of us and when it started to rain. I made my husband drive back, since I had had enough at that moment.

I plan to get back out on the road again this week.

I lived and grew up in NYC till I was 28 years old. There was really no reason why I needed a car, since public transportation was so abundant and it was just faster to take the subway instead of driving. I did get my license when I was 18, just to use as a form of ID. I did do some driving back and forth to the airports, but that was about it. Most other places that I drove to, I would purposely avoid the freeway and take the surface streets.

I moved to San Diego, CA when I was 28 and realized that I really must drive. By then, I haven’t driven in for the past few years, and the aggressive drivers there totally intimidated me. I relied on public transportation, my husband, and carpools.

Now, living in Las Vegas, public transportation does not exist in my neighborhood and I’m getting to the point that I have to learn how to drive. For now, I work from home, but I’m starting to climb the walls.

The other day, I made my first baby step of driving to the grocery store. I was nervous, nonetheless, but I know it’s something I have to do. I will continue to make these trips to the grocery store until I start feeling comfortable enough to branch out to other areas.