First, remember to breathe.
I have my second driving lesson tonight and I'm nervous, more nervous than I thought I would be. I've finally disagnosed this as the source of my stress for the past week--the subconcious gnawing away of my mind at the idea of driving again. It's not that the lessons are bad or that I've had a bad experience so far. It's just that, well, i am not all that confident that I have all of the skills in place that are needed to be a driver.
You see, i have filters that help me cope with the world in general. They filter out the redundant information and let through the information that's important. i've worked on mine for a very long time, and i'm proud of them.
But driving is a whole different story. Driving requires a whole different set of filters, and it stretches the ones i have to the limit. When i glance in the rear-view mirror, what I see makes no sense. I have no referent for the shapes in it, and I feel myself scramble to comprehend what it is I see. When i have a little bit longer to look, comprehension comes all at once, things assigning themselves meaning. but that takes about three seconds, and that's too long to be staring in the mirror.
with more experience on the road, I'll develop filters that will let me glance in the mirrors and down the road and make immediate sense of what I see. But the process is nerve-wracking, and leaves me white and wrung-out afterwards. I'm find if I just don't think about what I'm doing to much; but the minute I have to remember the proper order for something, i get flustered. I'm afraid much of my first lesson passed in one ear and out the other as I tried to assimilate all of this new information at once.
But all things considered, i did pretty well, and i'll probably do well again today. I've just been stressing about this for a whole week, which is really a bit much. I'd been wondering where the nerves were coming from...it's this. As long as i could kind do this and slip it underneath my attention, i was fine; but now my subconcious has a hold on it and is gnawing the hell out of it.
I just want to tell it, "LEAVE IT!"
later:
So that wasn't bad at all. i'm getting better, i really am, and I just need practice. The actual practice of driving isn't all that bad, it's just the idea that scares the hell out of me.
I'll succeed at this. i need to succeed at this. I will drive, oh yes, I will.
I got a little bored tonight and took pictures of myself again. i really need to throw these in a directory someplace and let people browse them.
But, later. for now, sleep.
