The Driving License

Where I live, getting a driving license is not a Saturday morning affair. You have to go to a driving school, pay for lessons, pay for the exam, and if you fail — pay again. Every attempt costs money. And the attempts add up.

The first time I failed the practical exam, it wasn't a surprise.

Well, a little. I had passed the theory test in the first round — which, in case anyone doubts it, is not easy. But I'm a words person, and that helped quite a bit… I know how to study things. Signs, distances, regulations. Everything organized and memorized. First attempt, passed.

The practical exam was where the drama began, because that was a different story entirely.

I had driven cars before, like everyone does, I suppose. I knew the basics, thanks to the good will of everyone who wanted me to get it done quickly. So in theory… I knew how to drive. Or so I thought.

David was my instructor. Friendly, though we argued quite a bit. It wasn't really either of our faults — I already had my own ideas about how things should be done, and he had his. He would often say: Do that when you already have your license! Not now! Spoiler: it took me a while to understand what he meant. Well, our lessons had their entertaining moments, I won't deny that, and in a small car with two personalities like ours…

The car never gave in.

I failed the practical exam six times. I went back. I paid for lessons — forty euros each, adding up in my head even when I tried to stop counting. I paid the exam fee again. Failed. More lessons. More exams. More fees. I gave up. When I decided to try again, the theory test had expired. Full enrollment again. First round, theory test passed. Back to the practical. And I had to find an instructor. Obviously I thought of David.

The last time I failed with him, a few years earlier, I saw it coming before he opened his mouth. Something in his face. Something in the silence of the car when we parked.

—I'm sorry, but if you keep driving like someone who's been driving their whole life, you're never going to pass! —he said.

—But I stopped at the stop sign —I said.

—Not completely!

—Shit —I thought—. But almost completely, and I looked both ways. Nothing was coming. I stopped.

—But you didn't bring the vehicle to a full stop.

—What a technicality! Do I have to wait for someone to honk at me? That traffic light moves fast, for goodness' sake. It's not like we're beginners!

I gathered my things. And before getting out of the car I said, with complete calm:

—You know, David, you're going to have to become an examiner. Because I am never going to pass this exam with you.

He put his hands on his head. I got out with great dignity.

And I quit. Not David — well, him too — but the license. I filed the idea away in some mental drawer and moved on. The theory test expired again in the meantime. The car I had bought with such excitement was still in its place, waiting for me.

I went back to the driving school a couple of years later.

Theory. First round, passed. It was almost a ritual by now.

I asked about David at the front desk, more out of habit than anything else.

The woman who attended me exchanged a look with the owner.

—David is no longer with us —she said.

My face went cold. Those words. That tone.

—What... what happened to him?

The owner laughed.

—Don't worry. He left a few months ago. He's doing the course to become an examiner.

I stood there for a moment processing that.

I had been right. I had seen it before anyone else, probably even before he had.

They assigned me a new instructor. I asked for someone with infinite patience. We didn't argue. Either I had changed, or he was different, or I simply had no energy left to argue and just focused on trying to drive.

The day of the exam I don't remember feeling anything special.

I got in the car. The examiner gave me the instructions. I drove. I parked. I did what needed to be done.

There was a silence at the end that lasted too long.

—Congratulations —he said.

I didn't understand at first. I had to process it.

Congratulations.

Passed.

Years. The theory test twice. Money I'd rather not calculate. David turned examiner in some other car in some other city. And now this.

I should have felt joy. Or relief. But what I actually felt was panic.

Real fear, the kind that settles in your stomach without warning. Because until that moment the license had been an abstract problem, something to solve. But passed was something else. Passed meant I now had to drive. For real. Alone. On roads with other cars and roundabouts and rain and everything else.

And I had a car waiting for me. Two years waiting for me.

I got out of the driving school car and stood on the pavement for a moment, thinking that I had just achieved what I had been chasing for years, and that right now what I wanted most was to sit down for a while before having to do anything with it.

These days, I drive.

Not because I enjoy it — that was never the point. It all started out of pure necessity: I moved to the outskirts and without a license the world becomes impossible.

I should mention that when I bought the car I still didn't have a license. Everyone thought I was crazy. I saw it as motivation. I bought a small car, thinking that if I bumped into something while parking it wouldn't hurt my wallet too much. Lampposts and traffic cones move more than they should. I bought it with vision.

To this day, I still mentally prepare before starting the engine — a moment nobody sees — and then once I'm inside the fears fade away. Besides, it's so small it's like wearing slippers.

Even so, the last time I took the car out I ended up in a ditch. I was trying to enter a village I thought I knew — I had passed through it many times, but passing through and actually going in are different things. The GPS did what it could, which wasn't much. I got out, assessed the situation, calmed down, remembered what to do, and managed to get out after quite a bit of maneuvering. I was shaking, yes. And I kept going, with the help of my brave little car — which I'm certain, had it been any other car, would have refused to move and left me stranded in that ditch.

In short, every time I arrive home alive, I feel like I've achieved a victory.

(Don't laugh, and don't think I'm exaggerating. This is the honest truth.)

It's not like the victory of the day I passed — that was fear, not joy. This one is smaller, more humble, and more real.

By the way, I ran into David a few months ago. He became an examiner. And I'm still driving — alive and without fines… well, one.

More or less.