Yesterday was the first time since I got my driver’s license in September that it really dawned on me: I passed.
The driver’s license has been hanging over my head since the day I turned 18 and received both a car and a driver’s license as a gift. But nothing ever came of that. Not until I was 39.
Actually, it’s not my own bad conscience that has been the worst, but everyone else’s comments that have appeared from time to time over the years.
Not having a driver’s license as an adult can be almost as stressful as just wanting to have a child.
Unfortunately, I fell into both compartments.
But yesterday, as I put my kid in the car, drove down a road I’d never driven before, parked, shopped, loaded up the kids as well as four large bags, and then got back behind the wheel, something happened.
I felt capable. Really and truly. A feeling that has come and gone lately, but lasted a little longer yesterday.
It wasn’t until I met Erik that I slowly but surely started to become more enthusiastic. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been responsible and self-sufficient. But I didn’t grow up in a home where the cupboards are cleaned, important papers are in their place, the refrigerator is cleared out and detergent is sorted into different drawers, bills are paid on time, or the trash is sorted.
It wasn’t something I thought much about at the time,
and nothing that I doubted.
Now I am someone who has a cleaned refrigerator, order of important papers and detergent in different boxes. And it gives me a peace that I didn’t actually expect.
I think the feeling that happened to me is a surprise, a surprise why I feel so good?
It’s not so much about whether you have the papers in order or not.
Perhaps the feeling is more rooted in the certainty that if something were to happen to me, there would be someone else who could take care of what was left.
That realization grew after I was left behind, when both my grandmother and my parents died at a young age. I know how hard it is to have to clean up someone else’s life, in their innermost being, in things that have accumulated year after year.
Sorting papers looking for the most important. Caring for food that is long past its prime.
Sure, we have an attic with a lot of boxes, but we know what’s in them and why they’re there. There are no rooms in our house that I don’t think about. No sinkholes full of stuff and history that have been pushed away in the hope of never having to deal with it.
To me, this is about cops.
About feeling like I can handle my life. Not perfect, not flawless, but good enough. In a way that feels safe and sustainable.
The driver’s license has become a symbol of this.
Not because I couldn’t handle it before, but because for so long the environment felt like a benchmark for an imagined maturity.
I have also realized that while many people need creative chaos to create, I find my peace and motivation in order.
But that is precisely why I want to live a freer life in general. When the structure is there, the other things in life take on a greater place. Then I can feel, cry, laugh, enjoy myself and have a good time.
That is perhaps the greatest insight.
That the command does not make my life less alive,
but the opposite.
It allows me to really be present.
ā„
Photo ā Christian Ravnbak
#competent #person. #January