Driving

Some years ago I set up this blog, and I called it Still Not Driving. It was my way of defining myself in shorthand: I may be technically an adult; but I still haven't gotten round to the most basic aspects of adulthood. I don't even know how to drive a car.

I haven't blogged much in the two years since I returned from Honduras, but I've driven a lot. This morning, as I shut my car door and carried in the compost bins I had just emptied, I thought to myself how much I enjoy being a grown up. Although I still don't have a driving license (in Ireland, in spite of recent legislation, this is generally considered a mere technicality) I no longer feel that Still Not Driving effectively captures the essence of who I am or where I'm at. I have an idea that I'd like to start blogging again, so suggestions about how to rebrand this dusty corner of the internet are welcome. And thanks to Seoidin for the encouragement.

Why did I suddenly stop being a non-driver? Well, thank you for asking. It's a good question, because it does catch you up neatly with my last 9 months or so. At Christmas, my Nana had a stroke. It sounds like an insignificant fact: old ladies have strokes all the time, and it seemed pretty decadent to still have a grandparent at my age; although I've always felt it was the least I deserved, not having had parents for a very long time. Nana was 87 at the time (a damn good innings as she herself recognised), but a very young 87, the sort of 87 that still volunteers to help in the old folks home. The stroke was immense, and wiped her out. For the last 5 months now, she's been in a nursing home, wordless and paralysed, peeking out at the world from behind an inaccessible face that only occasionally betrays her extraordinary character.

Travelling by train to the hospital in Mullingar, I felt inept and useless. I had packed two suitcases with all my belongings for Christmas, and I planned to truck around the country as necessary blagging lifts and navigating public transport. I felt like an inadequate family member, a burden on the others, ever the youngest, ever the needy. I wished I had a car.

Skip forward 9 months, and now I have a car. This is one narrative of my transformation from non-driver to driver. It's been great fun, and in spite of one failed test, I'm confident that soon I'll even be a legal driver. All the worry, the sense of ineptitude, has dissipated, and now I discuss roads and manouevres with all the other people who used to bore me. I drive to Roscrea every two weeks, and hang out with my family.

I think of this as the story of how I responded to my Nana's sickness. But in another way, it's the story of how I finally grew up.