Late March, 2017
I’m 44 years
old—going on 45, right?—doing my driver’s test today. Surely this is something
I should have done, like, 27 years ago. Well, I didn’t, and, instead, it’s
today.
I never
really needed a driver’s license, was my rationale, since I lived in a city
with decent public transportation, and I always had friends or a parent with a
car. (Also, for most of my life I’ve been one extremely, indulgently lazy person.) Why did
I need a license if I never needed to drive? Well, for one reason, so I
wouldn’t have to get it when I’m 44. Hindsight’s always 20/20, though—unlike my
vision, for which I require glasses to legally drive.
I feel
excited and nervous. I have my game face on. The juices are flowing, goes the
saying. Any time filled with the anticipation of doing a test is a time filled
with nervousness and excitement. My belly roils with pleasant nausea, like that
feeling when the first drink is just hitting the bottom of the belly and
starting to burn.
Make no
mistake, it’s a good feeling, living on that narrow, sharp edge of fear. These charged moments are moments to live for, moments
during which we feel most alive, no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel.
Waking up on the morning of the big test or the championship game, the week we
expect to hear back from grad school applications or companies we’ve interviewed
for a job with, the moments leading up to opening that letter containing the
response from the publishing company. These are the moments that separate the
important, emotionally charged days from the banal, every-other-day days.
I look
around the bus on which I’m travelling to my pre-test driving lesson and I see
people looking at their phones and staring off into space. Any other day,
that’s me (well, maybe I’m reading a book or typing away on my computer instead
of looking at my phone; or maybe I’m looking at my phone). These people have
nothing at stake, or so it appears. These people are just whiling away time like
they do every other day. I, on the other hand, am getting anxious and nervous
and anticipating the moment when I’m under the gun, when I’m being tested. I
have something at stake today. And the signifier sizzles in my belly.
This
morning, before leaving for work, Praveena asked me if I was nervous about my
test. I almost lied and said no, thinking perhaps that I should appear
impassive, unaffected, that the driving test was no big deal. In the end, though,
I conceded that I was in fact a bit nervous. Doing the driving test is in fact
a big deal. Praveena’s the inspiration for my getting this license today. She
convinced me to do a driving course a couple years ago, and then to get my G2,
and now today I’m going for my G. I will have taken another step toward being
an adult. (Now if only the Maple Leafs can win the Stanley Cup, my childhood
will officially be over.) Never mind that I’m almost middle-aged. I’m taking
measures to improve my standing in life, to gain yet another measure of
autonomy. I have the sizzling signifier in my belly to prove it.
Yes, I’m
nervous. I’m nervous about failing, or worse, about crashing the car. But
chances are that neither of those things will happen. I realize what is at stake and
I have prepared, intellectually and emotionally. The buzzing in my belly has
spread to my limbs, the very tingly beginnings of an acid trip. I can feel it
in my arms, a nervous, kind of rubbery thrum. It’s adrenaline, it’s anxiety, the signifier that today is an important day in my life. And I realize I’d
rather have more days like this than the banal, unimportant days all these
other people on the bus (and planet) seem to be having. Why coast through life when you can
crackle with energy and excitement? Nerves aren’t a bad thing, so long as you
appreciate them.
