Obtaining a Driver’s License

My mom texted me last November.

I opened my phone, expecting to see a message about how I was doing.

The message read: your 16-year-old neighbor just got her driver’s license.

My mom loves telling me about a neighbor or relative obtaining their license before me.

At the time, I was 21 without a license.

Now, at age 22, I am still without a license.

My dad didn’t get his license until he turned 22. My brother, who is 20, doesn’t have his license, either. Both of my sisters had their license before they graduated high school, and my mom got it soon after her 16th birthday. But for some reason, us men in the family didn’t care about getting our license in high school.

I’ll be a senior in college next month with plans of moving away from home after graduation. I want to live out West, or maybe in Chicago or Washington D.C. When I tell people of my plans, they ask me how will that be possible if I don’t know how to drive.

I always knew I would need to get it eventually, but college sort of got in the way. I mean I had a permit at age 16.

I even took a driver’s education course during sophomore year of high school. But I never took any practice courses because frankly I hadn’t be interested in driving. I would just go to the classes, and never schedule an appointment to practice. My sister would sometimes take me out driving in the summer, but those lessons would become less frequent.

My permit expired once, and then again, and then again.

After three years without obtaining a driver’s license, your permit expires, and you have to re-take the permit test.

I entered college without a valid permit, so I purchased an identification card.

Since I go to school in New York, I never had the time to take my permit test during the school year.

But obviously I could have taken it during the summer.

For some reason, I never took my permit test again.

I work near 69th Street at our township building during the summer, so I take the trolley each morning to work. Last summer when I interned at Clear Channel, I would take SEPTA four times a day. Public transportation has been the way I got around these last three summers.

This summer I had every intention of living and interning in New York City. But things didn’t work out, so I figured, hey, maybe I should do something about that driver’s license.

A few weeks ago I began preparing for the permit test, and had planned to take it on a Saturday when I had off from work.

I have yet to take the permit test, but that’ll change this weekend.

My sister and I plan to go this Saturday to the DMV where I hope to obtain a learner’s permit.

I leave for school on August 20, so I’ll have nearly a month to practice driving, and then to take my road test.

I’ll share my stories of learning how to drive at age 22 (assume I pass my learner’s permit test) on here.

Getting a license will be nice for a number of reasons.

One of them will be my mom not texting me whenever a neighbor gets their license.