When I was a teenager I wasn't interested in learning to drive. I used to tell myself that one day I would live in a nice big city and use public transit, or that I would get an electric vehicle later on when those became a thing one day. But I wasn't interested in it for the longest time. I didn't have friends and didn't really see the point.
I didn't get my license right away. But I felt bad when I was asked to stay late at my job, and there my dad would be, waiting out in his car for up to half an hour after getting out of his workplace to pick me up. I didn't want that to keep happening, so I had getting a car in the back of my head then. But I had to save up for it.
My dad really did the footwork and found a cheap vehicle for me as my first car. I got a really good deal on it, and I'm happy I went with that because the car I had my eye on at the time was twice as expensive and I never could have afforded it since I quit the job I had around that time. I was a pretty awful driver early on, and I had to learn a lot on the fly. My anxiety and ocd didn't always help. I remember pulling forward and turning in front of a bus that had the right of way on two separate occasions. Honking of horns and people hitting the breaks drilled a lot of things into my head fast, and made me realize I didn't understand all of the rules of the road initially.
But within a pretty short amount of time I came to appreciate the newfound freedom that came with owning a car. I didn't have many places to go and didn't spend much time driving around my hometown, but I would go to the closest mall, and just try to go get away from everyone for a bit on drives.
When I took my first long-distance trip in that car, that was kind of the make-or-break moment for me. It was raining pretty hard that day and I came to a stretch of the highway that was closed due to roadwork. I probably had a bit of a panic attack and wasn't sure if I should still go or give up and cancel my plans. But I decided I was tired of the way things were, and I really would have done anything to change my life and take a chance on something new. So I went out of the way a bit and figured out how to get on the route I wanted to be on, and it was a much simpler fix than I'd worried it would be. And after another hour, the rain let up and it was a beautiful day!
It irritates me because I know a lot of people who still haven't gotten their license, or still haven't gotten a vehicle, and they don't seem motivated to really do it. I doubt I could make it at all without a car these days. And now I know public transit, while a good thing to have, is not really all it's cracked up to be. You live your life around bus schedules.
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