Hello, friend.
I’m here at the pub, ploughing through my e-mail, fiercely trying to get to “inbox zero,” and there’s one to-do I’m stumped by: when should I start my driving lessons?
After months of putting it off and genuinely not knowing how to choose, I finally picked a driving instructor. We’d exchanged a few e-mails, so I found out how this works and how much it costs (cue sharp intake of breath at the cost). I’d promised myself, Craig, and the lady who runs the local bulk food shop (we chat when I’m in) that I’d commit to lessons by September””so by contacting the instructor I just squeaked in on that deadline, technically.
Yesterday I was sitting in the living room, typing away, when I saw the instructor sitting in his car outside my window. After a moment of confusion (had he arrived to pick me up? what?), I saw that he’d just stopped there to send a text message””like a good driver””so I took the opportunity to go out and tap on his window. Then it was his turn to be surprised, but I told him who I was and we chatted about my options. His only concern was that I have my provisional licence. (Oh yes, I’ve had that for a year.)
He was really friendly, and that was the little bit of reassurance I needed. Thank you for that, Universe.
Now my conundrum: I’m really busy this month, going away to Germany for a week, then going to Edinburgh at the end of the month for the Scottish Poetry Library’s small press fair, By Leaves We Live. I need to make a lot of books for my table at that event, so it wouldn’t be fair to myself to stack driving lessons and studying for the theory test on top of that and my regular work (which is busy lately).
But that means starting in November. Then I go to Canada for December, and I don’t see myself getting comfortable and ready for my test in a single month. If I put it off until the new year, though, I’d really have to put it off until the spring, ’cause learning to drive in the middle of winter seems crazy.
(If you’re still reading this back-and-forth mental chatter, thank you.)
So what do you think? Is it worth starting””even if that means starting-and-stopping””just to get going? Or should I wait and do it all in a stretch?