Another post about things and how I’m doing is forthcoming, but for now, I thought I’d give us all a little break and give everyone an update on the driving lessons. I know that a couple of people had been curious as to how that’s going, and after all the encouraging comments and prayers, I felt like I should share the joy. (P.S. Thanks for those, by the way.)

Things have been going quite swimmingly. As it turns out, my fast learning also extends to driving. I honestly would not have predicted that, but it does. I learn quickly and I’ve been rather good at self-correcting when necessary. My trepidation regarding driving has waned some, though not altogether. I’ve been hesitant to move forward and try more nearly every step of the way — leaving the parking lot and trying the neighbourhood, leaving the neighbourhood and trying the open road (mostly back roads), and then leaving the back roads and trying two-lane roads that are slightly more trafficked. That’s not to say that I’ve spent a large amount of time at any particular stage — for most people, I haven’t. As I stated earlier, I just pick things up quickly, and so what I had mentally conceived as an appropriate time for each stage turned out to be much more than necessary with my current set of skills. However, when it’s been suggested (usually multiple times) that I have grasped this and I’m ready for something a little more difficult, I’ve pulled back each & every time. Even though I’m well aware that I’m doing really well, I still doubt myself. (Perhaps I should mention that Steven’s parents are the ones teaching me how to drive.) Once they gently push me into trying something more difficult, I give in. So, I am pushing myself slightly more and more each time so as to not remain stagnant.

What we’ve been doing, and what I really appreciate, is gauging my anxiety as we go. This has actually been remarkably helpful for me, because it’s forcing me to evaluate my anxiety with the situation each step of the way as I’m driving rather than doing so in hindsight. This helps me to understand what is making me anxious, how anxious it’s making me (whether it’s small enough to not distract me from the task at hand, thus allowing me to continue, or whether it’s overwhelming me to the point that we need to back up a step and try it later; I’ve been completely fine so far, save for one incident, and I handled it as I went along), and how I’m handling it. I’m actually really proud of myself. I’m finding that I can calmly navigate far more than I had expected. I honestly thought I’d be a basket case behind the wheel, but I’m actually fairly easygoing. This has understandably been a pleasant surprise. The only really bad habit that I need to break myself of is my verbal declarations that I am speeding. While Steven’s mother finds this to be adorable, I am dubious that the driving examiner will. Of course, it would stand to reason that I need to break the habit of speeding at all, and I am trying. Truth be told, that really isn’t an issue. If anything, I tend to go ever so slightly under the speed limit (I know, I know, I’m sorry), but I’m still trying to figure out the speed control thing. I think I’m doing well for a beginner. I just need practice.

If today is any indication, though, the drivers on the road think I need practice in bring cut off. They’re so nice, helping me work on my reaction time.

I might have mentioned once or twice (or twelve times) that I have anxiety disorders.  I have found that anxiety and fear tend to run hand in hand, at least for me.  For about six years now, I have constantly been grappling with the anxiety and fear that come from the prospect of driving.  I do not have my driver’s license.  All throughout high school, I made up excuses.  I used to say that I was just too focused on school and studying, and that I simply did not have the time to learn.  Whenever someone would try to get me behind the wheel, I would say that I did not feel well; I’d tell them that we’d do it later.  Those were not lies.  They were very true.  They just weren’t the real reason holding me back.

Everyone has different fears and anxieties that plague them.  One of mine happens to be driving.  Most people find this fear to be completely preposterous, because for most people, it’s not really an issue.  Most people look forward to learning how to drive and having the freedom that comes with having your license.  I was not, nor am I now, one of those people.  Sure, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t care about being able to go wherever I want whenever I want.  I want that, certainly.  However, I don’t like the process one has to go through in order to attain that freedom.

I’ve been told by people countless times how surprised they are that someone so intelligent has a fear of driving, an activity which even the most intellectually challenged members of society partake in.  It is more than a little frustrating to have so many people reduce the matter down to that, because it doesn’t provide a full and accurate portrayal of the picture.  Intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with my fear.  My fear is an amalgamation of factors, too many to be listed.

Growing up where I did, it was not easy being a junior or a senior in high school who didn’t have a car, much less one who didn’t have a license.  It was a fact that I was embarrassed by, and I desperately tried to hide it.  My friends knew, or at least most of them knew.  I begged rides frequently throughout my sophomore and junior year of high school.  I then became too embarrassed to do so, and I humbled and embarrassed myself further by switching to taking the bus to and from school every day.  I’d quickly walk to the bus every afternoon after school got out, and I would try to hide my face so that no one would see me, but inevitably, I would occasionally run into someone by the front office.  I always tried to pass it off as my leaving in a car that happened to be parked in the front of the school where the visitors and administrators parked.  I don’t think that anyone thought anything of it, but always in the back of my mind was the fear that they’d find out or know that I wasn’t heading to a car but to a bus.  Those that knew were constantly giving me a hard time about the fact that I didn’t have a license, including my family.  Everyone’s insensitivity was difficult for me to swallow.  No one ever seemed to understand that I wasn’t ready, and rather than realising that sixteen is an age suggestion, everyone turned it into a standard.  I honestly felt like everyone was trying to hold me to a standard that I honestly just did not fit.  Looking back, I’m glad that I didn’t get my license then, because I know that I wasn’t ready.  I just wasn’t, and I know that that is hard for a great many people to accept, especially because I’m so intelligent (a factor which I still assert has nothing to do with any of this), but it’s the truth.  I wasn’t ready.  I was afraid.  I was nervous.  Emotionally, I wasn’t ready to take that step.

Don’t take that to mean that I could not have.  I think it’s obvious that I could have if I had been forced to.  I could have learned, and I think that distinction is important.  Everyone focuses on the fact that I could have had my license when I was sixteen.  I will gladly concede that point.  However, emotionally and mentally, I wasn’t prepared for that.  I needed time.  I believe that had I gone and done what everyone else wanted me to do, it would have been disastrous.  I’m not saying that to justify waiting, but because I know myself.  I know that I’ve always been precocious, and I’ve always jumped head first into most things.  I was always ahead of the curve, but this time I wasn’t, and I think that’s what bothers people the most.  But waiting was the best thing for me.

It took me a long time to be ok with that.  Being behind the curve was difficult for me to come to grips with as well.  In fact, I think it hit me the hardest of all.  I think that’s fairly evident by the fact that I always tried to hide it–continue to try to hide it.  I don’t even hang out with friends from my town that much when I’m home because I don’t want to admit that I don’t have a license and that I need someone to pick me up.  It’s not easy to deal with the ramifications of it all, but I have at least accepted the situation.  I finally have accepted that it’s ok to have this fear and anxiety, and I’ve even accepted that they are ok reasons to hold off for a time.  I’m now ok with that.  I realise that the degree to which I feared driving and the amount of panic that it caused in me were reasons to postpone getting my license.  I didn’t realise it then, but I was smart enough to act on my instinct.  Going to school in Boston really helped with that, because I met a lot of people who do not have a license.  Not having a license doesn’t make me an outcast there, nor does it make me a freak.

Learning to drive is not something I want to do.  I have managed to delay it for six years, but with grad school around the corner and my graduation from grad school next May, I face the problem of obtaining a job and finding transportation to and from work.  Unless I live in a major city, that transportation will have to be a car.  Thus, an impetus to face my fear, however reluctantly.

I’m still afraid.  I still don’t want to do it, but I do think that I’m finally ready.  The anxiety and the fear that I feel aren’t the same kind of anxiety and fear that I used to feel.  I think that these are normal amounts of each, albeit probably slightly higher than those most people experience.  Something just feels different this time, because for once, the timing actually feels right.  And as long as the kind people teaching me are patient and understanding of my fear and can work with it, I think I’ll be just fine, or at least I hope so.  Regardless, they’re willing to take on my neuroses on top of teaching me how to drive.  That’s always a good sign.

It all starts tomorrow.  To prepare, I am going to say many prayers, followed by a tranquilliser.

Feel worse today.  Went to class.  I survived, but I had about as much difficulty making it through as you’d expect.  Went to dining hall afterwards because I felt it too far from where I was, which was 2 minutes away, so I figured that if I felt it too far away to walk from there, then there’d be no rousing myself later once back in my room.  I couldn’t find the thermometer, so on the way back I dropped by CVS and got one.  It was about the time that I grabbed a pregnancy test thinking it was a thermometer that I realised I didn’t need a thermometer to tell me I’m running a fever.  I think it’s time to go back under the covers now.

I think I’m sick.  It started kind of suddenly last night with a headache and a pretty bad tummy ache.  I took some medicine to help with both, but it didn’t help.  I had to lie on my side clutching my body pillow since it was the only position that would somewhat calm my stomach to the point of being tolerable.  Still, even though I was exhausted nearly to the point of a narcoleptic induction, I was unable to sleep.  It was some point after two hours of clutching my pillow and whimpering that I eventually was able to fall asleep.

Then this morning I woke up with, you guessed it, a headache and a bad tummy ache.  I had to endure five hours of class today with a tummy ache and a headache.  Oh, and gastrointestinal difficulties.  I am not a wuss when it comes to health matters; I can handle a lot of pain and deal with most illnesses, but I absolutely cannot stand nausea or throwing up.  Thankfully, I haven’t thrown up, but the tummy pain is unbearably ridiculous.  It feels like I’m going to throw up, even though I’m not.  You know that terrible pain in your stomach that you get before you throw up?  That’s what I’m feeling, all the time.  I am a wuss.  I hate this.  I cannot stand it.  Stomach pain is the worst.  Give me anything else, just not tummy pain.  A friend bought me Gatorade between two of my classes.  That worked wonders for the length of time it lasted.  During my two and a half hour break I went and bought books, which was stupid because my backpack was full of books and so I had to carry a backpack full of books, a bag full of books and my heavy purse full of stuff.  My muscles were already sore, and that just made it worse.  I now feel as though I’ve been used as a bicycle ramp.  I hope the angulation of my body provides for optimal air time.

I’ve also been running a fever all day.  I can’t find my thermometer, but I’m pretty sure I am.  My head feels hot to touch and my hands are icy cold & shaky.  Although I’m not entirely sure what I have, I’m betting that it’s probably a mild form of the norovirus.  Hospitals around Boston have been getting hundreds of cases of the norovirus lately.  It’s the new fad, and for once I’m in while something is still trendy.

I don’t get to go to RCIA tonight since I love them all enough to avoid infecting them.  I’m still going to class tomorrow, though.  I don’t know them well enough yet to know whether or not they’re the sort of people I’d like to share this with.  I do have two friends in the class, but given its size, I think they’ll be ok if I take the effort to sit far away from them.

I probably shouldn’t even be taking the effort to post since I have little to no energy.  I’m worried about how I’m going to get my reading & homework done for my class tomorrow.   My hands are weak & shaky.  My fingers are not doing what my brain is telling them to do, and my head keeps involuntarily turning to look at my bed and the reading I need to do for tomorrow.  I was going to say something else, but the tummy pain is worse when I’m sitting or standing, so I’m going to go lie down now before tears start splattering everywhere.  On the bright side, Supernatural is on in half an hour.  I never get to actually see it when it’s on.  Uhm, while I’m writhing in pain and moaning, you should leave me something to cheer me up.  Tell me a joke, or write me a story.  I like stories.  Heck, draw me a picture if you like.  I’m easy.  …Unless you tell me to go to the doctor, because I’m too ill to walk all that way.  Besides, they’ll yell at me for going.  I’ve already gotten an email from Student Health Services asking that anyone suffering from the norovirus not go to the hospital or the medical clinic because then others will be affected.  I will grant their request.  But I’m still going to class tomorrow, even if I have to crawl.

I broke the site.  Steven said this will be fixed by the time I wake up, but I doubt that since I will be waking up insanely early.  If it is still broken after I get into Boston tomorrow afternoon and go to Mass tomorrow evening then I will call him every twelve minutes to pester him to fix it.  I give you my word that my harassment shall not cease ’til the masses be appeased.

I am now back in Boston.  I got in this evening, just a little bit ago.  I had a nice big pile of work waiting to greet me with arms wide open.  I am loved.  The work will have to wait until tomorrow, though.  I think I’m going to take the rest of the night off.

This would be where you congratulate me for holding off on work until tomorrow instead of freaking out and diving in tonight.

Anyway, I had a very lovely break.  This past week was the first time all semester that I didn’t really do any work at all.  I would like to say that I didn’t do any work on our 2-year anniversary, but that would be a lie.  However, I’d like to point out that Steven also did work and that we were doing work in the same room, so it still counted as spending time together.  This week also was notable for the fact that I failed to set an alarm two nights.  I always set an alarm.  I do not ever let myself sleep until I’m ready to wake up.  That’s crazy and nice and I am not a benevolent dictator with myself.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I ever just slept.  It’s also been a pretty long time since I’ve slept through the night.  It was nice.

My birthday turned out to be far better than I imagined.  I was with Steven’s family, and since my birthday always falls on Thanksgiving Break (I’m a turkey baby!), I managed to avoid the typical 21^st birthday celebrations.  I think that this was a good thing for me.  I rested for most of the day and then went to the vigil Mass, because I like going to Mass on my birthday.  After Mass I went to return the Gather book to the shelf, and I noticed that one of the books was placed with its pages facing outward.  I took the book out and replaced it so that the spine of the book was facing outward.  Then I went to place my book on the shelf, and Steven pointed to one of the books and asked, “That one’s upside down, are you going to fix that one too?”  I thought about it a moment and then reached for the book to pull it out and correct it.  He laughed and said I was cute.  Then I noticed another one upside down and reached to fix it as well, but then Steven grabbed my hand and pulled me away.

Did I happen to mention that I’m a perfectionist?

After Mass I read part of Steven’s birthday present from his mom while he went out to go buy me a couple of birthday presents and his mom fixed me my birthday supper of meatballs & rice with broccoli, except I requested that we use Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles instead of rice.  (The meal is basically beef meatballs with Lipton Onion Soup mix, worcewhatever sauce – which I call Wester Chester sauce – and garlic powder in brown gravy over white rice or, in this case, egg noodles.)  This is one of my most favourite meals ever, and I could not begin to tell you why; it just is.  We had a sparkling wine (my choice) with dinner.  For dessert we had ice cream cake.  When I was younger I did not like cake, so we had ice cream cake for my birthday, but it’s generally a family tradition to have ice cream cake for people’s birthdays.  Steven’s mom was kind enough to make a homemade ice cream cake for my birthday.  It was yummylicious.  Then I got to open my presents.

And then the next morning I threw my back out while brushing my teeth.  If it didn’t hurt so much, I’d be laughing about it.  And crying.  Because I am an old lady now.  Clearly, this cements it.

Last night Steven’s sister & I went to see Bella.  That’s a post for another day, but let it suffice to say that I enjoyed it immensely and I highly recommend it.

I apologise for the lack of content in this post, but today was chaotic and full of travelling, so I didn’t really get a chance to think to write anything substantive.  Hopefully I’ll have something better and perhaps slightly more entertaining tomorrow.  I reserve the right to change my mind on that, though.

The heat in my room had been off for a very long time — since sometime yesterday, in fact!  Thankfully, I was not here for most of that since I was attending the all-day women’s retreat, but I sure experienced it when I got back last night.  Oh my goodness, was my room cold.  I had been ever so prescient and left one of my windows partially open, to boot.  I don’t know exactly how cold my room was, but it was about the same temperature as my refrigerator.  I hopped in my bed and covered up and stayed there all night and a decent portion of today, though unfortunately not sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours (GAH!), until finally I decided to call my RA to see if it was just my room or if it was the building.  She was not in her room (I wonder why!) and said that it was her room as well (she lives directly below me) and that she had called in a complaint last night and waited up, but no one came.  She suggested that I do the same.  So, I called the RA-on-call to inform him that hypothermia was occurring in record numbers and that I would love him forever if he would be so inclined to get someone over here to rectify the situation.  He was kind enough to oblige me and within half an hour a nice man knocked on my door and checked out my radiator.  He then said that he had received other complaints about the heat and that he’d go check the boiler in the basement.  He came back about 5 minutes later and informed me that the boiler had been off for about 24 hours and that he turned it back on, and right about then I heard the familiarly disturbing hissing sound coming from the radiator next to my bed.

And then I got down on my knees and kissed his boots.

In my mind, that is.