Driving Lessons

After the doctor said it out loud at my appointment on Friday, it was so obvious, that my feeling of being sucker-punched seemed really silly and naive. Of course I can’t drive. I haven’t been driving myself anywhere already, honestly—everyone is eager to drive me to appointments, to go pick up groceries, to scoot over to CVS to get my prescriptions. And I haven’t felt well enough to drive—I just got the semi-full use of my leg back after this hematoma frolic and detour.

But of course, I literally can’t drive and the doctor told me that on Friday—I am filled with medicines that definitely put me in the do not operate heavy machinery category. One of the reasons I am feeling better is my pain management regimen is starting to get really under control. Which is due to the fact that I am taking a series of pain meds and meds to counteract side-effects of pain meds all day and night. So duh, Brown. No one wants some 51 year old woman hopped up on opioids and anti-anxiety medicine tooling around the streets of Carlisle. Of course I can’t drive. It would be like telling someone as they slipped off the bar stool—of course you can drive home, you’re well-intentioned and you just are going out to pick up some milk, a kid from camp, a book from the library.

But wow, it really hit me like a ton of bricks. I have some ideas about how to think my way out of my initial feeling of my world narrowing in an unacceptable manner, but first, let me start by thanking my dad.

My dad taught me how to drive—all three of us kids. Bob Brown had certain tasks you needed to achieve in order to pass the Bob Brown School of Driving, after which the state could treat you as it would. First, you had to be able to parallel park. Second, on a hill. Third, on both sides of the hilly street. Fourth, using a stick shift car. He was pure mathematician about all this. It was a physics problem. You could solve for it. Tears were unnecessary and not really to be acknowledged. I’m grateful for all that.

I will confess, I still choose the easiest parking option—if I can park further away from the destination in a way that allows me to scoot right in, without a three point turn, without lining up the wheels of my car with the wheels of the other person’s car, I take it. But I am grateful to Bob Brown for giving me the tools to do it if I need to do it—whether I am pumped up with methadone or not.

Next. If I get the chance to be here in ten years and teach the twins to drive, I promise to pull out all the Bob Brown stops. I will dig up a stick shift car, I will find the nasty hill with the narrow spot from which to navigate in and out of, and I will ignore tears. And you can ask the big kids—I hate teaching kids to drive. It is one of my weakest parenting areas. I am riddled with fear and doubt. And the kids know it. They know that I am terrified we are going to get in an accident. When I murmur, you’re doing great, that’s fine, I don’t know why they are honking, damn Boston drivers, they know that it is taking all of my will power not to jump from the car the next time they slow down. Everyone for herself! Mothers first!

Finally, who knows, right? Maybe I am going to go down the path of therapeutic drugs in a way that allows me to wean off pain meds, for a time, for a few weeks, or (gulp) a few months. If so, I will be glad to pick up the milk, scoop up your child from the soccer field, parallel park around the corner from the tapas place in Cambridge, or meet you for a lobster roll in Rockport. In the meantime, it’s been wonderful seeing all of you for the small and long visits we have started to share. As many of you know, or will come to know, I live surrounded by corn fields, practically on Paul Revere’s midnight trail, out here in the world of obsessive bikers with their sleek PMC shirts, and their fancy farm stands filled with heirloom tomatoes and burrata cheese.

I’m looking forward to seeing you this fall and winter, and I know it’s a pain to drive all the way out here—but just starting to see what a gift Bob Brown bequeathed on me some thirty-odd years ago.