Driving Test

 I was going to write a blog post last evening or this morning about my attempts to calm myself before my driving test today. I was going to write about an expression in Marathi that means “do not hurry”, which is an oblique way of saying “do not panic”. But do not panic is useless advice to someone prone to panicking, so the useful advice is not to hurry. Slow down, and you will panic less. I remember my coach saying it during an interschool badminton sports meet when I was 13. For racquet games especially it is eminently reasonable advice as the haste to finish the point by forcing a winner can lead to what they call in tennis parlance as “unforced errors”. But, because I was running short on time, I decided to do an anxiety mediation instead.

I managed to keep my nerve in the test and passed. One of my aims before I turned 40 was to get a car and a license to feel more like an adult. That aim has now been achieved and it feels like an anti-climax. There is no jubilation, no huge surge of relief. If I had failed I could have kept driving on my Indian license. Yes, it is not advisable to do so in the current political climate, but a couple of months ago I was dead against getting a car of fear of being deported for traffic violations. But, that bridge I had already crossed, inspired by the chutzpah of some first-year PhD students in my department. I had decided that until I am in the US, I will try to live as full a life as possible. Or else I might as well go back voluntarily. And, it feels good that my driving skills have been validated by a representative of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.