driving me mad

Driving

and why I hate it

        We were discussing in our literature class one day how driving is traditionally seen as a symbol of teenagehood and freedom and all that good stuff, because we were reading a poem some person had written about how their car was their sanctuary and how it was universally this place for all teenagers, how it made them feel free and powerful and at peace. 

        And I just don't get it. I rather hate driving. I mean, I fully understand that the ability to drive a car is an essential skill in today's world (unless you live in, like, NYC or something, which I don't), and so I know I must learn it in order to be able to function and go places and things, but I dread it like normal people dread an essay test. (I would gladly take a good essay test over driving most any day.) I know I have to drive, but I really just don't particularly want to. It stresses me out to no end; I get so tense when I'm driving. As soon as I've pulled in and parked and turned off the car I just let out this huge breath of relief and think something to the lines of Thank goodness, I'm done driving now. 

        It's just, when I'm driving, I have to be so painfully focused. I am not a naturally focused person. My mind dances around from topic to topic as naturally as I walk. I daydream and zone out and find myself lost in my own thoughts many times a day, and it's fine. I can still pay attention in class, still do well on tests (though, granted, I frequently take longer than most people), still carry on conversations with people, still walk places without running into things, and do very well at a great variety of school-related things, and all the while it's alright if my thoughts and my focus are drifting a little here and there. 
        Perhaps some psychiatrist or someone would say I'm, like, ADD or something like that, but I've never really cared for psychiatrists. I mean, I'm sure they're good people and trying to help and everything, and in lots of cases I suppose they do, but it seems to me that things like ADD are overdiagnosed these days, and that children are given too much medicine for things. For instance, there was a girl I knew in Virginia who had ADD or something like that, and she was always on medication. She sat with my friends and I at lunch, and oftentimes she seemed very sad and quiet. Then, one day, she came to school having forgotten to take her medication, and she was so amazingly happy. I had never seen her so jubilant. She was much more talkative and she laughed and she was just beaming all through lunch. I felt like it was the first time I'd ever really met her, and that she was finally allowed to be herself. Yes, she was a little noisy and she had a habit of cutting other people off in conversations, and she was perhaps a smidge (quite a large smidge, actually) hyper. But she was so incredibly happy, like I'd never seen her before. The next day, though, she was back on her medication, and she was slow, quiet, and sad-seeming once more. I'd like to think that she could learn to control things like being hyper and talking over people on her own and that she could be so much happier all the time if she wasn't on medication like that, but it's not really for me to say or interfere with in her life, but still, it made me feel so bad for her, how that day just made me realize, who she really is is being trapped down inside of her all the time. It struck me as quite tragic.
        But, anyways, I digress. Hahaha look, I'm digressing about attention deficit disorder. Oh, there's some definite irony there. I really do digress a lot, though. I suppose it is something of a reflection of how my mind is working. I just love to think of lots of things, and it's so hard to not keep thinking of a bunch of different things all the time.

        When I'm driving a car, I really have to suppress my natural thought process. Behind the wheel of a car, my very life suddenly hinges on my ability to be conscious and aware of so many things that it puts an incredible strain on my brain and my emotions. I must monitor my speed without staring constantly at the speedometer (without even glancing for more than a scarce moment, as the road requires such instant responses), I must precisely guide the wheel of the car so that the vehicle remains on the proper right side of the road, especially when going up hills or on divided roads (we live on gravel, so sometimes it's okay to drive down the middle a little, though it still sort of makes me uneasy), and yet I must not go too far to the right, especially this time of year when the muddy thaw is making the sides of the road soft and my mom warns me that they could easily pull us into the ditch, and I must be aware of the other cars around me and more often than not passing me (I drive quite slowly--after all, if you drive faster, it's just that much harder to control and that much faster you have to process every single thing that's happening, the faster you have to think and act and react--and so basically I drive as slowly as my mom will allow me to), and I must slow down to turn and use my blinker at the proper time, and eventually I'm going to have to learn to use my mirrors though I often ignore those because there's already so much going on to which my attention must singularly be given, and I have to turn at the proper angles and degrees to stay on the correct part of the road, and I have to slow down and stop at the right times, and I have to just generally keep the car so very under control and do the right thing and react the right way at a moment's notice if, say, something leaps out into the road or something, and I have to do all these things and more and be so very in control of the car, and I have to consciously remember that I'm driving, and I have to think about that and focus on that and remember that I'm driving, and I have to hold myself in and lock myself onto that. It's more stressful than calculus. Literally, I feel more stressed when I am driving a car than I do when I am taking a calculus test. Honest to goodness.

        I can't wander off into thought about the intricate relationships of characters on Once Upon a Time, or about my future (which it feels like is in the process of being decided presently), or about the stories I'm writing and where I'm going with them, or about how gorgeous the clear spring day is, or guys I've had crushes on, or about how I'm looking forward to being able to take my bunnies out walking when the ground is clear and firm again, or about Rumbelle, or about the Divergent movie we're going to go see tonight (now that we saw Friday), or what I'd like to be eating right then, or about the complicated concept of 'home', or about the random pimple on my nose, or what I'll do for my blogs this week, or the fun song that's on the radio (I can't even very easily listen to the radio while driving yet, because I'm too tempted to think about the songs), or why we find one color more visually appealing than the others, or any of the plethora of random things I'd love to be wandering off into thought about. The whole of my being must be constantly centered on the concept of driving, and not only the general concept of driving, which I'm thinking about right now, but the precise moment I'm in, and every factor and every thing that is happening around me. It's so hard to stay in that moment and to realize presently I am driving, not I have been driving or will be driving, and I have to deal with it all so instantaneously. I can't forget for a split moment that I am presently driving, which is incredibly tough. It's very hard to be completely in the moment and aware like that. 
        Also, there's just so little time to process things. I like to process things thoroughly, I really do. I can spend quite a bit of time thinking about a relatively simple thing, and even more time on a more complex thing, and I love when I have the time to slow down and think about things. That's one of the things I really like about these blog posts; they afford me the time to slow down and think about things I've been meaning to think about. I mean, for example, I knew going into this post the gist of why I hate driving, but exploring it in this way has helped even me understand it somewhat better. But, see, I can't think like I'm thinking now while I am driving, even if I am now hurrying to finish. I just love deep and best of all thorough  and complete thought, the deep mental examination of various topics.
        I think the longest drive I've ever done was about a 12-mile round trip, from our house to a small town called Harmony and back (which, by the way, I think is quite a lovely name for a cute little town. It's very Amity, in keeping with my next blog post. At least, I think the post on Divergent will be done right after this one. I guess we'll see. Actually, now I've decided that post is coming out next week.), and it was so... exhausting to be so concentrated on driving for, like, 2o minutes solid. I know, a lot of people drive longer than that, but it's just so hard for me. I hate the mental exertion of pinning my mind down so very hard. Also, whenever I go around a curve I feel like I have to slow down so much so I don't go off the road, and I especially hate meeting a semi because they're so huge and it always feels like they're going to hurtle straight into you.  
        Perhaps another part of my problem is that I'm always too aware of some things, namely the fact that there are any number of ways to make a mistake and suddenly bring about the death of myself and my mother in the passenger seat beside me, and the fact that driving is one of the most deadly activities in which people regularly participate, and everything feels so fragile when I'm driving, so precariously hinged on my not making one little mistake and so prone to change in a moment if my thoughts are allowed to wander naturally. My dad asked whether there was any specific incident that had traumatized me to make me afraid of driving, but I don't think there is; I think I'm simply far too aware of everything. They say teenagers feel immortal and invincible, but I don't, not in a paranoid, terrified-of-everything kind of way, but in a realistic, understanding-the-ever-present-dangers kind of way. And so I have to constantly focus, because I know it can immediately change, and this stresses me out. 
       In general, I just really don't like driving, and I can't help it. Here beyond the violet mist, cars are not a requirement to travel about our realm; instead, one may simply walk or fly.