The Roanoker - Sept/October 2021 - 18

home front
The Drive Home
written by Christy Rippel The moment many parents dread: their teen's acquirement of a new driver's license.
that the tiny, helpless squidge of a person
in the backseat would ever be allowed to
operate a vehicle, I'd have laughed you into
the next county. Someone slap me if I tell a
woman in Target with a baby and dark rings
under her eyes to enjoy every minute. It goes
so fast! It does. It did.
What no one told me about this parenting
thing is that the whole deal is letting go,
and it's continually letting go before you are
ready. You leave them-at daycare, at school,
at their first sleepover. But suddenly they are
ready to leave you, and that feels entirely
different. Right now I'm in the passenger
seat, but in just a few short months, that seat
will be empty, and he'll be venturing out on
his own. The world is still not safe. I still have
a baby to protect.
He's getting better every day, from that
C
"
an I drive us home? " Liam
asked, as he emerged from the
DMV with his newly minted
learner's permit.
I admit, I hadn't considered
this part. " We haven't practiced at all yet, let's
not start with the highway, ok? " I countered.
I wasn't ready, he wasn't ready. " Let's find
a parking lot. You can practice there first. "
We claimed a section of empty blacktop
at Wal-Mart, near the DMV. I went over
the basics of signaling, mirrors, braking,
driving with one foot, and all the things I
could think to tell him. He'd already heard
them in driver's ed, but it made me feel
better to say them anyway. He humored me
for a while, buoyed by the excitement, before
finally cutting in on my speech about how
other people don't drive defensively with an
eye roll, and " I know, mom. I know. "
He does not know.
We drove around the parking lot,
practicing accelerating and braking. It was
enough for the first day, but the problem
with learning how to do anything is that you
have to do it badly first, lots of times, before
you get good at it. Driving is no exception,
to the distress of parents of 15-year-olds
everywhere.
The next day we got on the road, and
I admit, it was one of the most terrifying
rides of my life. There I was, strapped into
the passenger seat which I discovered had
no brake, despite pressing on one repeatedly.
It reminded me of another terrifying drive
home, when my husband Chris piloted
our Toyota Corolla through the streets
of Pittsburgh with me and a two-day-old
Liam in the backseat. I wanted to drape my
body over the carseat, I wanted to trade the
Corolla for a military tank. Everyone seemed
to be driving too fast. I noted every reckless
lack of signal before a turn, every driver
fiddling with his radio. Chris drove slowly,
hands at ten and two. The world was not safe,
and we had a baby to protect.
We got used to driving Liam in his
carseat, gradually relaxing the grip on the
steering wheel. It's amazing how you can get
used to almost anything. But if you'd told me
rough start in May. At first he was slow and
fast at the wrong times, inching too close
to mailboxes on my side, jerky with the
accelerator, too early with the brakes at a
red light. I run play-by-play from the cockpit,
his navigator, the Goose to his Maverick.
" Watch that truck, he's weaving through
traffic, " I say. " Do you see that cyclist? " I
know he does. I'm not hitting the imaginary
brake anymore. You can get used to almost
anything.
What wisdom can I dispense about 25
years of driving? What have I learned? I'm
trying to remember what it's like to be new,
when everything is a first. I can teach him
what to do and how to follow the rules of the
road, but it will be up to him to do it. And I
know the hardest part of driving is making
well thought out decisions, like, should I be
getting behind the wheel right now? And
making split-second ones when things don't
go according to plan, and you have to swerve
to avoid an accident or get yourself out of
a skid.
I won't be there to steer him to safety. I
will have already let go of the wheel. I
CHRISTY RIPPEL is an award-winning freelance writer, covering lifestyle, design, health and parenting. A VT graduate, she likes to bike and walk local trails. When she and husband Chris
aren't watching the Hokies, they watch their four kids compete in sports. Christy is a Maryland native and lives in Roanoke County.
18 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
TheRoanoker.com
COURTESY OF CHRISTY RIPPEL

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The Roanoker - Sept/October 2021

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