Driving Miss Crazy

Maybe it’d get everyone off my back. I need a trauma or disorder to explain my lack of motoring skills to my fellow New Yorkers. See, I happen to be the only person in New York who doesn’t drive. Maybe even in America.

I was a closet non-driver for the past few years because we didn’t have a car. We swapped alternate-side parking obligations for a car-sharing service, and forced our lazy butts to walk or take public transportation when a car wasn’t necessary. I’m well able to walk and call me a show-off, but I’m kind of great at taking public transportation too––so for the first time in my life I didn’t have to apologize for how I got from A to B (or rather, how I was taken from A to B.)

After four years of car sharing, we don’t want to share anymore, and so now I have to face down the interfering finger-waggers again––the smokers of the world breathing a congested sigh of relief to have them off their backs.

People are meeting my still-not-driving news with even more horror than when I stepped out of the passenger side, well rested, four years ago.

My aunt’s sister-in-law told me I’m a disgrace to the feminist movement. My husband’s ninety year old grandmother told me I’ll be sorry when I’m in my eighties and my husband won’t take me to the beauty parlor. My neighbor said learning new things only gets harder the older I get ––and then she stared pointedly at my crows feet. My son’s friend’s mom said I was putting my kids in danger by not being able to drive. My running partner’s sister said I’ll never be able to move to the suburbs.

I’d imagine that I’m supposed to feel awful about all of this, and guilty too. But I don’t. I tell myself that it’s not that I don’t want to drive, just that I don’t want to learn … though sometimes I wonder if it’s really something deeper. I’ve been watching Oprah long enough to know that it’s usually something deeper. Maybe I can’t drive, can’t learn to drive, can’t want to learn to drive, can’t care to want to learn to drive, because I can’t face some really dark disturbing truth. Oprah would throw that question out there right before a break and the whole audience would sit looking at me, looking right through me, anticipating my breakthrough, or even better, breakdown.