learning to drive (at 32)
Three weeks ago, I got into a manual car and I was in the driver’s seat. Let me preface this story by saying that I never had any interest to learn how to drive a manual car (because why would I?) when we live in a world where automatic cars exist?
I learnt how to drive a manual car, because I had to.
I moved to Madrid recently, and currently living in the suburbs, about 25 minutes away from the city. And the city is where I want to be all the time. So after a few weeks of driving my boyfriend (and myself) crazy, needing him to go virtually anywhere and feeling excruciatingly dependent, I finally decided to rent a car, even though I’m terrified of highways.
I learnt how to drive in a very strange way. The very first time, I was fifteen years old and my mother decided to teach me. She was dying of cancer at the time, and it was one of those things we always thought we’d do together, so we decided to do it ahead time. We drove to empty parking lot, switched seats, and she taught me everything about the clutch, the gears, looking in the mirrors. It was the only time I ever drove a manual car.
Two years later, my father’s girlfriend was in the passenger seat and she was trying to win points with me, the teenager who recently lost her mother and had to deal with her, the woman my father was dating barely six months after she died. I guess the driving lessons did help. She took me to the same parking lot and let me drive her brand new BMW. It was automatic.
I never took a driving test. I never learnt any of the road rules. I just sort of learnt with common sense and intuition. In retrospect, it was very bad idea to let an 18 year-old drive without passing a test, even if we did live in country where 300 bucks could buy you the license. I should’ve been more responsible, or at least, my father should have. But driving on the streets of Beirut is known to toughen you up. The rule is there are no rules and it’s every man (and woman) for themselves. The red light doesn’t necessarily mean stop, the scooters don’t follow any logic and the street signs are merely taken as suggestions.
Considering this as my driving background, imagine me in the driver’s seat of a manual car, approximately 17 years after my first and only try, about to drive in a civilized country where there are road signs, multiple shapes on the roads themselves, roundabouts; rules, basically.
The reason why I had to drive a manual car, when I never thought I ever would, is because it turns that in Europe, it is still a very popular way to drive. And car rentals have a very limited number of automatics, that they rent for an extremely high price. And so the choice was mine: either I learn how drive, or I am stuck being my boyfriend’s dependent for every move I make.
I decided to try. I told myself millions of people from all walks of life have driven manual cars successfully. I reminded myself it was actually the only way one could drive, not that long ago. And that it would be a good thing for me to learn this new skill, even at the late age of 32.
That first morning, my boyfriend showed me the basics, and then went to a meeting. I stayed on the road behind his house, which was empty and unlikely to get busy, to practice. About half a minute in, the car stopped. I had to reverse, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get the gear in reverse. It took three youtube videos to understand I had push the button. I started driving really slowly around the compound, practicing how to go from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3, and 3 to 4. I was trying to “feel” the car, as mentioned by anyone who ever tried to explain how to drive a manual. Two hours later, I was driving to Madrid.
It’s hard to explain the sense of achievement I felt. It feels almost silly — it should be simplest of things, something every teenager learns and not at all a remarkable feat when you’ve been driving for 15 years, but somehow, it was like I was learning to drive for the first time. I was so proud myself for getting to Madrid intact, I was smiling on my own. Stranger still, I thought “my mother must be so proud of me.” I didn’t even think that when I graduated with a Masters from an Ivy League school. But driving a manual — it was always her thing. She taught all her friends how to drive. She was a great driver herself, defying the very common cliche that women are terrible behind the wheel. And she did teach me, even though it was once, a very long time ago. It was probably the last thing we did together like that. And somehow, doing it now took back to that time.
Today, three weeks after I’ve dealt with a number of embarrassing moments such as the car turning off at the red light, multiple times, or me so terrified to switch to 5th gear on the highway that I end up driving 70km/hr, I was finally able to put some music on. I felt comfortable enough to not be one million percent concentrated, and even sang along the Cranberries’ Zombie while taking an exit. I can officially say I’ve learnt how to drive a manual car and I love it.
