The reason why I chose to drive again

It was so easy for me not to drive. I’ve always enjoyed watching the hypnotic scenery through the window while eating candies barefoot. Finding secret meanings to the song's lyrics. Having an intimate conversation with the driver and looking at their expression while they couldn’t take their eyes off the road. The uncomfortable toss and turn, the neck jumping like a ballerina. The best ideas, the most revealing epiphanies, almost ever happened when I looked at the heart rhythm of the horizon line.

It was convenient for me not to drive. I didn’t need to be sober. I didn’t need to be rested. I didn’t need to deal with the rude man in the gas station. However, it wasn’t always easy for me to depend on someone else. Maybe that’s why I also love traveling by train. You can cross Europe just by taking a train. I used to fall asleep in Antwerpen and wake up in different parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, or France. And I had the perfect excuse: I didn’t have a driver’s license.

I never needed to feel the road on my hands because I felt it everywhere else. I loved crazy road trips to music festivals with friends, having the first shots in the back seats while yelling our favorite tunes. I enjoyed the romantic scapes, stopping in hidden places to have rushed sex. I cherished all those family journeys during the summer to the North of Spain, when a rainy day was the most exciting thing that could happen to us because it meant we would take the car and go on an excursion.

“I never needed to feel the road on my hands because I felt it everywhere else.”

It was so easy to ask my aunt to drive us to the doctor when we discovered my mom had cancer. To call a taxi at 7 AM for her chemo session. At least it was easier than accepting that I had to pass the exam soon so I could drive my mom to the hospital in case of an emergency. Way more convenient to admit that I shouldn’t rely on anyone else, that I was the head of the family at twenty-three years old. I hated every single driving class. I hated the instructor. I hated the guy I was fucking to forget I didn’t have much time to get my license. I failed so many times. The exams. My uncle, who was paying for the classes. And my mom: I never got to drive her to the hospital. I called an ambulance and held her hand in the backside; no windows, no hypnotic scenery. I got my driving license three months after she passed away.

After she died, it was even simpler for me not to drive. The car was this untamed angry beast. My hands streamed sweat and tears on the steering wheel. But I tried. I drove my sister, my friends, and my boyfriend. I even drove my dad and stepmother. But I always found excuses for stepping out of the car and asking them to take control of the vehicle. There was so much relief in the copilot seat.

It’s been ten years since all that happened. Now I live in New York with my husband. We don’t have a car. We don’t have a US license; our Spanish one is not valid here. We fly a lot. We take trains and buses. Nobody needs me to drive them anywhere. But this is the first time in my life that I feel it would be much easier for me if I drove. I want to discover this vast new country. I want to heal. I want to feel the road on my hands and see the horizon line from the driver’s seat. I don’t need any excuses. I have all the reasons. And, although I haven’t had the strength to go inside the driving school yet, I know I’ll open that door soon. I just need to give myself some more time; I already have the spark of confidence I need to do it.

Illustration by Leire Bueno.