Educational Narrative Rough Draft...

Jennifer Daniels

English 101 – Begert

1/28/2013

Learning to Drive My Way Through Life:

            It seems simple, right? “How I Learned to Drive”. How generic. How ridiculously simple. She’s writing her paper about that??  Yes, I am. Here’s the clincher: the basis for my educational narrative. I see learning how to drive as a metaphor for the most important lessons one can learn throughout their life. Rules for applying the brakes translate as: stop whenever necessary, but do it slowly. Stopping abruptly & without cause can lead to a collision. Rules for acceleration: learning how to move forward. Take your time, and look both ways. Think before you act. And finally, being in neutral: stop and smell the roses. It is your halfway point between what lies in front of you and what you’ve left behind.

            Driving a car is not the easiest thing in the world at first. For me personally, I was terrified. I was also 18 years old when I learned how. Not for a lack of wanting to learn, but because of geography. I grew up in Wilton, California. A country town that was so small, it wasn’t even on the radar. You’d have to drive for miles before you ever saw your neighbor. Because I lived way out in the sticks, the driving schools from the nearby cities wouldn’t come out to our house. They said it was too far. (Understatement of the century!) So, it wasn’t until I graduated high school and moved to Folsom that I learned how to drive. And I was at a serious disadvantage. My uncle Dave comes to my apartment & says, “Come on, it’s time to learn so you can pass that DMV test.” To my astonishment, we walk outside & I don’t see his champagne-colored Suburban he always drove. I see a shiny black Honda Civic; and it’s mine! We get in and that’s when it hits me: this car is a stick shift! He took me up the hill and tried to teach me how to drive it. Big problem! I’m stopped at a stop sign in a residential neighborhood. No big deal. Except I forgot to mention that this stop sign is on the steepest hill I’ve ever seen in my life!! There are cars behind me honking, and I’m trying to get them to go around me. I know that as soon as I take my foot off that brake, I’m sliding backwards and I will crash right into them. After everyone had gone around me, I pulled the emergency brake, got out, and demanded that my uncle take over. It wasn’t until about a week later that I actually got the hang of it. My dad came over and said, “Enough of this. You have a car, you need to know how to drive it”. He took me up into the hills a bit, to an area that was undeveloped. It had steep hills, points where I needed to make three-point turns, etc. One of the best things he ever taught me took place on the biggest hill, which overlooked all of Sacramento County. He showed me that without even hitting the gas, I could make my car move forward. He said it is a matter of balance, between releasing the clutch and stepping on the gas. And from then on, I got it. I could drive the car and I was so happy to finally have my freedom.

The way I see it, driving takes time, and so does learning. The difference between childhood and adulthood is equivalent to the difference between learning to ride a bike without training wheels, and learning to drive a car. The best thing that I could do for myself was to learn how to embrace life. When you are thrown out into the adult world without any warning, as I was, then your take on life is a bit stunted.

            My older sister had a drug problem. She also had two beautiful daughters. Abbigail was two years old at the time, and Natalie was just three months old. When everything went awry, I was seventeen, still in high school and still living with my parents, as I should have been. But all of a sudden, everything collapsed around us. We found out that my sister Cassie was addicted to crystal meth. What?? Cassie? No way! She was always so straight-edged and prissy. It’s got to be a mistake! And with two beautiful reasons to cherish every moment of life, how could she have a drug addiction? Unfortunately, it was true. And within a month of finding out, Cassie’s fiancée had left her, she was homeless, and she didn’t have a job because she had been a stay-at-home mom. So her only option was to move back into our parents’ house. It was a small place, with only two bedrooms. After about a week of sharing a room with my moaning, screaming sister (who was going through withdrawals) and her two infant daughters, I realized it was time to go.

            So I was thrust into the world of adult life. I had to find a place to live, get a job, support myself and still manage to finish high school. Not graduating high school was not an option for me. I was hell-bent and determined to have a better life. But when you are stressing over things like rent and bills and family drama, especially when you should only be worrying about grades and boys, your view of life can become a bit distorted. I know mine did. The next few years of my life were very complicated and very stressful. I was supremely unhappy and I knew that I needed a change. I felt like I had a building rage inside me. Like I was thrown into this life because of bad decisions that my sister had made. I was the one suffering for her mistakes. And I was enraged.

            I’m fairly certain that everyone has experienced road rage at some point in their lives. Personally, I laugh at myself when this happens. Someone cuts me off, and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, “Are you KIDDING me!?!?!?” And don’t get me wrong, I’m really mad. But usually once a few minutes have passed, I’m cracking up laughing because I got so upset. And it’s not like the person in the other car could hear me. They were long gone. I try to keep the “road rage” out of my everyday life. I was a lot more dramatic in my teens and early twenties. It seemed like every little thing that happened had the potential to destroy my day. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that “road rage” is not the answer. If you spend your life worrying about all the little things that can, will, and might or might not happen, you’ll miss out on the beauty of it all. So the next time you feel road rage coming on, take a deep breath and remember this: it’s not the end of the world. There’s no point in stressing over the things you can’t control.

            I know it seems like a cliché to say this, but learning how to drive a car really is like riding a bike. It’s really scary in the beginning, especially if you don’t have your training wheels on! It’s just one of those things in life that you need to learn how to do, and after a while (hopefully) you’ll be really great at it. And over time, no matter how long it’s been since the last time you were behind the wheel, it is a skill that you will never forget. It wasn’t until many years later that I dissected the meaning behind my dad’s words. When I look at my uncle Dave, who is wound as tight as they come, and my dad who is very easy going and has that “go-with-the-flow” mentality, it is obvious that my dad’s words were the ones to listen to. If you are faced with a problem in life, you can’t panic and stress and lash out. That won’t solve the problem. It’s a matter of balance. Learning to find that special point when you release the clutch and hit the gas. Once you can find that point, everything will move forward smoothly.