Day 83 | Relearning How to Drive

I hit another huge recovery milestone today! I drove for the first time in almost 5 years!

I still remember the last time I drove really vividly. We were living in Seattle at the time and my health issues were just starting to become seriously concerning. I was driving to the grocery store by myself when my eyes started playing tricks on me.

Everything was fuzzing in and out and I couldn’t get them to focus. I felt like I was outside of my body and was no longer in control of my brain. “What is happening to me?!” I thought. It was terrifying and all I could think was: “Don’t crash the car! Don’t crash the car! Don’t crash the car!”

It was like swimming through peanut butter to stay on the road. It took all the energy I had to get to the grocery store safely in that state. Then the episode passed and I was able to drive home normally.

I never drove again. I just knew it wasn’t safe when my body was given to episodes like that. I now believe that those episodes were probably mini-seizures.

Later, as my health continued to decline I reached a level of illness where the physical exertion of merely sitting up and pushing the pedals would have been almost impossible. So I didn’t drive for years and I honestly thought that I forgot how.

When it was time to move to our new campground this morning Brett asked me if I wanted to pull out of our parking space and drive out of the campsite. I agreed, thinking that’s all I would be doing. It couldn’t be too hard right?

Right! It was easy! And when we reached the main road I asked if we should switch places. He said he thought I could keep driving.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He was sure. So with a mix of terror and excitement, I turned out onto the main road.

“Oh my goodness! I’m driving! I can’t believe it!” I shouted. “Ahhhhh! I’m driving!”

I was freaking out! Can I really do this?!

(See the embarrassing video on my FB page)

Brett coached me along the way.

“Okay, speed up a little bit… Good job!”

“Stay on the road! Just because there’s another car coming doesn’t mean you need to drive on the white line.”

“There you go!”

“Okay, slow down for this curve… now speed up into it… Good job!”

“A little faster! You’re not even going the speed limit!”

Haha! He reminded me of my dad teaching me to drive for the first time. I guess I still have the same weaknesses! At one point I had to pull over to let 6 or 7 cars pass me! I must have been going so slow! I was so embarrassed I couldn’t stop laughing!

But I did it! I made it all the way to our new campground! Yippee! I can drive again!

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.