I had my third driving lesson the other day. The instructor got me to go around in a little loop on some fairly quiet roads. The main challenge was that there were a lot of parked cars, making it quite narrow (by my standards) in some places. I only had control of the wheel. She took care of the brakes, the gears (or whatever you call those in an automatic), the indicators and looking in the mirrors. We crept along at a snail’s pace and she got me to use a touch of gas when we had to go up a hill.
After the third repetition of the loop I was exhausted. It was almost time to go home anyway so we stopped. On the way back, I asked the instructor if I am her worst case scenario as a pupil. She told me that I am far from it. I knew would be her answer but I hoped it would not be; I think this means that I’m not bad enough to be able to claim that I have any problem other than a severe lack of talent.
I was never interested in being good at driving. I know I have other strengths. But if my lack of ability is not evidently pathological to an observer, I at least want to know why driving and similar activities produce the response in me that they do. The concentration makes my brain hurt. Within minutes tears are welling up in my eyes and I feel a kind of frustration that I am not familiar with in any other context. I end up doing strange things like biting myself in order to get relief. Thankfully, at the moment I’m managing to deal with it by squeaking.
