I MISS our couch chats. I am not easily overwhelmed, but everything has been really overwhelming these past months. It has given me the realization that multi-tasking is not such a good thing and the collective weariness in a seriously understaffed workplace is taking its toll, sadly on my watch. It has so far been heartbreaking day-in and day-out, and I pray things will get better real soon.
Anyway, as if the challenges in a very busy workplace are not enough, I have decided to take on a “refresher” on those skills that seem to be my unslain dragon. Next to Math, of course. I learned the basics of driving at a very young age of 14, with my Papa bringing me to the NEHS Oval in Cabanatuan City to practice.
At the age of 16, I could drive our owner-type jeep around Bongabon, Nueva Ecija where most of our weekends were spent, with only a student driver’s license in my pocket. I got my non-pro driver’s as soon as I turned 18 but since we had no car of our own at the time, I had no practice in driving again, up until I was in law school here in Baguio when I again enrolled at a driving school.
I’ve taken driving school refresher courses about three times, but since it’s a skill you have to practice continuously to fight off the anxiety of actual-busy-street-cars-everywhere driving, I failed to get that confidence you’re supposed to have to do it in Baguio with all our steep and narrow roads and all the cars and jeepneys parked on the sidewalks. I am so jealous of expert drivers who just cruise the roads and drive as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. I catch myself watching jeepney and cab drivers shift gears and drive on seemingly without having to think, and I get so insecure. Seriously.
So I have decided to conquer this dragon again, this time with the strong resolve that I’m finally honing it, and not letting it be rusty again. After a week of being assisted by our trusted driver-mechanic, I was able to drive myself home and back to work a few days, and I felt so proud of myself.
I am still learning every day. There was a time the car battery died down and kindhearted Manongs from Goldrich Construction came to my rescue there at Leonard Wood Road, along that steep road going up from Brookside. Yup, that’s me causing traffic one afternoon. Shameful, I know, but part of the process.
I don’t know exactly when this confidence in driving will finally surface, but I hope it’s soon. I can’t wait for the day when it becomes like the most natural thing to do, sans thought and anxiety.
But don’t get me started on parking expertise. Yet.
(serendipity.couch@gmail.com)