Sweaty Hands, Heavy Heart

Sweaty
Hands, Heavy Heart

I
always rubbed my hands against my jeans before I drove. Everytime. I
consigned the sweat droplets that lived on my palms to oblivion
before placing my hands on the steering wheel.

I
didn’t learn to drive until I was eighteen. I envied my friends who
shoved their balloons into their trunks on their sixteenth birthdays,
speeding out of the school parking lot with a loud screech. I told
myself that if I could drive, I would do it better than them. When
sixteen turned to seventeen and seventeen turned to eighteen, I lost
hope in that conviction. I thought I would never learn how to drive.

My
fear of driving stemmed from my mom’s accident when I was seven.
Even though it was so long ago, I still remember the feeling of
sitting in the back seat. I had put on the wrong shoes that morning
and I called out to my mom.

“We
have to go back,” I whined. “I left my shoes, Momma.”

I
never heard her reply.

We
were rear ended as my mom stood still at a stop sign. Her small,
white Toyota never stood a chance against the modified pickup trucks
that were common in my rural town. I was wearing a seatbelt but the
force sent me careening forward.

“My
neck! Momma, my neck!”

I
heard her crying. My mom, who served in the military, who was as
tough as rawhide, was crying. She flung open the backseat of the car
and lifted her broken baby into the first responder’s arms. I was
placed into the ambulance stretcher. I remember rubbing my hands
against my shorts to distract me from the sound of the whirring
sirens as we rushed to the nearest hospital.

The
sound of those sirens came back to me every time I thought of getting
my driver’s license. After I finally took the test and drove my mom
home, she scolded me for letting too many drivers pass me, for
driving too slow.

“You
can’t be overly cautious,” she said. “It’s just as
dangerous.”

My
goal is to practice safe driving enough to eliminate that pit in my
stomach every time I sit in the driver’s seat. I can’t wish away
my sweaty palms or my mom’s accident but I can try to consign my
anxieties to oblivion.