Drive On
August 15 — Lindsay Williams
Like the majority of millennials, I also have more than one source of income. How else am I expected to enjoy life rather than just surviving it and doing the bare minimum that equates "living" it?
Anyway, you may be shocked to discover that I do not make that much (any) profit from my art and jewelry, at least not as often as I'd like to. Yet. So, I recently started to drive with Lyft, because my black ass should not be driving with Uber [reference the 2016 election for the backstory]. Fast forward about a month and I'm currently three rides away from my first hundred rides and it's been interesting to say the least. I've refused to drive during the drunken night shift which doesn't allow me to make as much as I'd like to. And it doesn't help living in the downtown Sacramento area where people would rather spend four dollars versus walking three blocks. FYI, if you're not tipping you most definitely are wasting my time and gas, so at the very least be entertaining.
Other Lyft drivers in the Sacramento area rave about how much profit there is to be made in the bay area, so I decided to drive there Friday the fourth, and see what all the hype was about. I intended on driving across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco and staying there until I'd reached a certain amount of pesos, but the closest I got was the Oakland airport. I waited until I passed Vacaville to turn on the driver app and didn't get my first ride until I hit San Pablo. There was a woman buying weave for her daughter and needed to double back because she'd gotten the wrong color and there was a man that claimed to be the 'good side of HR' that was running late to a job interview.

Somehow or another after a couple hours of driving in circles and finally giving up on making it to San Francisco, I ended up in Berkeley for what would end up being my most memorable ride to date. My GPS had been malfunctioning all day long and I had thought about rage quitting and heading home without meeting my goal, but I kept thinking to myself, "Just drive on" and "One more ride".
I'd just dropped off an elderly man on the top of a hill in Berkeley with an amazing view when I received another ping on my phone as I tried to navigate through the neighborhood. If the pick up address hadn't been on a dead end street I would've driven by her. She looked like everything I ever wanted to be, an obvious free spirit and she had the same expression on her face that I would've had on mine under the same circumstances: a mixture of annoyance, boredom, and amusement. I apologized profusely as she got in the car and had to wait as I argued with the GPS lady. She was extremely courteous and polite, very understanding. In fact, she seemed content, since she was no longer standing outside waiting for me.

After what seemed like an awkward forever the GPS lady was finally on my side again for the moment. The GPS lady said we were off to Piedmont and in the normal Bay Area traffic it was going to take roughly twenty minutes to get there. Once we hit the freeway we began to politely chat and it didn't take long for me to be able to relate to her and she become my most interesting passenger of he day. Her name was Mäyä and I was driving her art gallery. During the drive she told me about another local artist from Sacramento that she had been working with and had just landed a mural for him in Portugal (His name is JM Knudson, go check out his art at this link: https://www.facebook.com/jmknudsenartist/). When I asked her how long she would be in Portugal for she said she had only purchased a one-way ticket and was hoping to go to Spain afterwards.
My heart was singing. Although I felt so inconsequential in her presence, driving her to the future I yearned for myself, I felt that I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't mention my artistry. I humbly told her that I had just started to show my photography and that I had just launched my website/blog. She seemed genuinely shocked and politely interested and asked if I had a business card. I actually did, something I'd designed myself and printed at home, in other words not the best quality. And I only had three from the first batch (that I hated) that had been sitting in my wallet for about a month by then. But still I had them.

In my mind it was quite dramatic as I was just driving up to our final destination and she was getting ready to get out of my car into the busy street when I mentioned the business card. she surprised me by giving me one of her business cards and the artist she'd mentioned. She also accepted my business card although I gave her its brief, sad history. She left my car and I couldn't help but think that this is what happens in movies. It was so hard to believe that I almost didn't email her. Why would anything good come from this? She probably doesn't even remember me. She was probably just being polite and I would be annoying her. All of the negative self talk.
But, then I thought to myself, "Drive on". What could sending her an email hurt? Our paths had crossed for a reason and if there wasn't a reason outside of the fare, her lack of a response would inform me of that. So, I sent her an email simply asking if I could mention our ride in my blog and if she would take a look at my website and provide me with feedback. I expected to stress about it for a few weeks, forget and then just never get a response. Not the case. Long story short not only did she respond, she told me that she'd like to collaborate with me and have my art as part of her December first show!!!
Just like that.
So my message to you is DRIVE ON. The term comes from the military in my case. You don't want to do that thing you've been doing, but you know that doing that thing will improve your quality of life? DRIVE ON. Did you just get dumped for the crappiest of reasons and you can never see yourself loving anyone again (slowly raises hand from the back row)? DRIVE ON, there's always a next one (sorry, not sorry). Do you feel as though you've been running down an endless tunnel towards your goals, but you're never going to reach them? DRIVE ON, success is down there you've just got to believe that it is. More importantly, I think that once you start focusing on believing in yourself the rest will just fall into place.
