life is a highway: that song from the cars movie

or getting over driving anxiety and life anxiety

I’ve had really bad anxiety my whole life. I was scared to go down slides, to go on the swings, or to learn to ride a bike. So, really, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that when it came time for me to learn to drive I was terrified. It scared me to be in control of this multi-ton death machine.

I was (and still am, in a way) behind in my learning to drive. It was a huge amount of different circumstances that led to me starting to learn to drive at seventeen. We were moving around when I was about to turn sixteen and then we got into a crash that left our main car unable to drive. Then I just got super busy. And so I only started to learn to drive after I got my permit at seventeen years old.

And today (as of writing this) I just drove on the highway for the first time. At eighteen years old. It was a fairly empty highway, but I still did it. I got on the road, I got up to speed, and I drove for almost an hour on the highway. And it was easier than I was expecting! It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting to get up to speed.

The first time going a speed over about five miles an hour felt like I was sliding out of control. Every time. I felt like I was out of control when I went ten miles an hour, when I went twenty miles an hour, and things got really scary when I got up to thirty and forty. This wasn’t any different today. I felt like I was going to go spinning off the road as I started to climb towards fifty. But I made it. I drove at fifty-five (the speed limit) the whole way.

It honestly could be a decent metaphor for life. Feeling out of control as you start to speed up, feeling behind if everything isn’t on the same exact time as everyone else, and the pride when you successfully get up to speed. I felt so out of control on the road at first, just like I feel out of control with life feeling like it’s moving too fast. I felt so behind everyone else in their driving journeys, just like how I feel behind a lot of my peers. And I know that I’m going to be so damn proud of myself, just like how I’m proud of myself now.

Everything seemed to fall into place with my driving today. It started to really make sense, it started getting easier, and I was able to do this thing that once made me so scared without being nearly as anxious. I hope all of these similarities are some sort of sign that I’ll feel the same way about my life soon. Hopefully it’ll start to all fall into place as everything starts to speed up and I’ll get more and more comfortable on this highway we call life.