Driving.

Never have I ever imagined driving would be so complicated. You must keep your eyes on the road and your mind conscious of what you're doing or you'll screw up and hit something. When it was my turn behind the wheel, that's exactly what happened to me. Today I began my first two hour driving lesson of three. I've driven once around my neighborhood (a complete circle) but never outside of that. This was totally new for me.

When I first got into the car, I buckled my seat-belt and stared at the pedals. I had no idea which was the brake pedal and which was the gas pedal. I stared at the pedals as my driving instructor wrote down some information. He asked me questions about my driving experience and could sense I was extremely nervous about driving. Indeed I was. When he asked me to drive the other student home, I guess my face was like this:

because he suggested he'd drive instead. Of course I mentioned I didn't know which pedal was which. That also could have alerted him to not let me drive. Well the ride to drop the other student off at home was interesting. It was mainly a learning experience and getting to know the instructor type drive. The way he drove, it seemed so easy. Heck the way any adult drove made it seem easy. After dropping the other student off, we headed to the rich part of the city where no one dared entered. No one drove through Ottawa Hills because you had to drive slow and the Ottawa Hills police basically lived there. Being that this was my first time really driving, we needed to start slow. I drove around Ottawa Hills for an hour and thirty minutes. I can't tell you how many times I went around the same streets but by the end of the drive time, I knew the roads by heart. Learning to steer and use my pedals came easy to me after awhile. My instructor said that was the point of his lesson.

Towards the end of the lesson, my instructor said, "you're pretty good at this. Tomorrow we will be driving on the real roads because I can't baby you forever." I groaned. "With my help," he continued, "you'll be great at driving. But for today,we'll conclude this lesson by having you drive to my office for the next instructor." "Oh snap" was my first thought. "I can do this" was my second thought. I went from driving 25 mph to 35 mph to 40 mph to 45. I was super nervous. He kept telling me to relax (and never yelled at me when I screwed up). With his guidance, I drove all the way to his office AND parked nicely. When the next instructor got in the car, she said my instructor said I was a fast learner and he knows I will get the hang of driving quickly. If only they knew how bad I want this.

I must say this will be one interesting challenge but I can't wait to conquer it. I also had to apologize to every person's driving I made fun of. It isn't as easy as I thought it would be.