Driving (part II)

So I passed my driving test on Friday. Then I proceeded to spend the next 3 days driving.

First, I drove to Roscrea, for the guaranteed gratification of sharing my news with my aunt. This is a prodigal daughter situation: like most adults in the developed world, my brother and sister have been qualified drivers since their early 20s and nobody has ever found this fact remarkable. Since it's taken me 32 years to get around to the feat, I am lauded like a Nobel prize winner. Honest to god, my aunt burst into tears when she saw my little car without the L plates. She barely batted an eyelid when I was conferred with my first class Masters degree.

From Roscrea I drove to Cork on Saturday, and spent Saturday and Sunday driving driving driving.

It was something of a rite of passage, my weekend on the road, albeit a well belated one. I am so used to arriving in Cork by train, rushing through the rain to the bus stop, losing shreds of time throughout my weekend to half hours waiting for various types of transport or for my lift to arrive; newspapers and bags of crisps consumed in waiting rooms or on low walls in the countryside; desultory shops mooched around. Now I am my own chauffeur, and I can pack my weekend with as many visits and trips as I choose, limited only by my absence of a sense of direction, and exhaustion at night driving. Over and again I would pat the dashboard of my little car, congratulating us both on our remarkable achievement. After decades of motor disempowerment, I had joined the ranks of the true citizens of this country: the drivers.

When the dizzying exhileration passes, I'll have to weigh this situation rationally. Driving's not cheap, and it's only getting dearer in the coming budget. I have also put in 32 years being a smug eco-git, considering myself better than my colleagues because - by force - I took the train to work. The text I got from my boss when I announced my news said it all: "the real test is if you keep taking the train to work". In such a long time as a non-driver, I learned to navigate Ireland by cadging lifts and negotiating public transport. It was slow, frustrating, and even infantilising (I always felt somehow childishly dependent because I couldn't drive myself places) - and yet I have always had this deep belief that we must move beyond dependence on cars. I was proud of not needing a car.
Now that there's an alternative, we'll see how serious I was about that. There is a difference after all between not needing something, and simply not having it. So now I have a car, what do I do with it? I was allowed a one weekend binge, now I have to find out how to be a responsible driver.