Driven

So, I didn’t think I would write anything for this challenge, because the premise feels weird to me. When is the middle of my life. Has it passed? I hope it’s in the future. But here is an anecdote from a comment I left on Leslie Writes’s story, "Who Taught You How to Drive?”, about how I learned to drive.

Me: I love this so much!

And we have had wildly different learning experiences when it comes to driving. For some reason, my family decided "you know what that kid needs, something with wheels, that he might injure himself with," and thus my driving career began at the tender age of three with a toy version of the Honda ATC.

Then came the bike with training wheels. And then those bad boys came off, and I was really going. The first thing I learned to drift on was my bike, because I used to watch a lot of auto racing. No, really I mean a lot. After Saturday cartoons, it was NASCAR, Formula 1, motorcycle(both paved and dirt track), drag racing, you name it. So, it was no wonder that I watched how the dirt track motorcycle racers would drift their bikes, and figured it out on a pedal bike. Then around nine, I got my go-kart, and boy, was that a decision. And this doesn't include my dad's apparent philosophy of "if you can fit in the seat and reach, you can drive it." DO NOT RECOMMEND IN ALL SITUATIONS. That's how I almost drove a compactor off of a wall when I was nine. It was fun though. I learned how to do donuts in a skid-steer at 10.

Of course, this only led me to want to drive more things. So, once my grandpa let me take control of the boat, you know who was driving if we were taking that out.

Which also led me to eventually enroll in flight school in 2014. I would be lying if I said I didn't chuckle a little when I read "get back on the horse story," because it reminded me of a conversation I was having earlier today with one of the officers that just got dropped from flight school. I was trying to comfort him about not making it through, because it's really tough. I told him, I know what you mean. I was telling (him) how when I was in flight school my seatbelt unbuckled while doing stall practices, which made me slam into the controls. This was really scary, because it forced the plane in a further downward angle, but I was able to push myself off the controls enough that my instructor could regain control, while I got back in my seat and buckled. But it was the first time, besides trying to juggle a full time job and flight school that I questioned my decision. Because if I had been on a solo flight, it would have made recovery even harder. But long story short, I kept going until I couldn't balance work and school any more.

Leslie: Holy shit! 🏍 🏎 ✈️ 🛩 😳 Thanks for reading and sharing your story 💖

Me:Yeah, I looked at how (long) that was. I think I’m going to include it in one of my upcoming articles 😂

Leslie: That’ll be an exciting one! Have you done the chapter of your memoir yet? The flight training stuff would be very interesting!

Me: Nope. I feel weird about that challenge. Because choosing a moment from the “middle of my life” feels too close to predicting when I will die. How do I know if that’s the middle of my life? Or if that chapter is yet to be written?

While I realize this may be an odd article, I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. And here’s to hoping that that stall sequence wasn’t the middle of my life. That I’m right, and that chapter is yet to be written. I hope you enjoyed this little anecdote about the brief history of how I learned to drive from a very young age.

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