Happy belated holidays and Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season like I did, surrounded by the things in life that matter most. If the holidays were a hard time for you, I send you positive vibes and best wishes for an amazing 2025.
I am currently sitting in the DMV waiting for my daughter, my last baby, to return from her driving road test, the last step necessary for procuring her license. I can’t believe this is actually happening. In just a few minutes, assuming she passes (which I am confident she will), she will be a legal driver and one step closer to independence. This, in turn, means I am also one step closer to independence. I will no longer be needed to take her to school, drive gymnastics carpool, or shuttle her to a never-ending list of academic and social obligations. I can retire from my role as chauffeur and my days of sitting in pick-up lines are officially over. It is bittersweet, thrilling, and terrifying all at the same time.
The DMV here in Camden, South Carolina seems almost exactly like the one I went to thirty-plus years ago to get my license. It is invoking an odd sense of nostalgia in me even though we are in a different state. Rows of uncomfortable chairs are positioned much too closely to allow for any personal space, the waiting room is devoid of anything colorful except hard brown tile floors that match unadorned brown brick walls. I am fairly confident the tiles have been there for more years than I have been alive. I can even smell cigarette smoke drifting in every time the front door is opened, taking me back to the days of my childhood when people smoked freely in public places (something I do not miss at all).
As I look around for inspiration for this blog, I realize the only tell that we are in modern day times from my current vantage point is me with a laptop out and every other customer in the place scrolling mindlessly on their cell phones. It feels like the exact same waiting room I sat in so many years ago as a teenager. Of course, if I stood up and peered behind the tall counter, I would be able to see the credit card machine with tap technology and a computer at each workstation reminding me the DMV has evolved, like everything else, over the past three decades. This point was clearly made when we learned my daughter is authorized to use her back up camera during her test. The DMV is like the perfect blend of old meets new.
When we checked in, we went to a little glass window and provided hard copies of all necessary documentation. Our paperwork passed the initial checkpoint, and we were instructed to sit down until our number is called.
My daughter was feeling a little nervous about the impending test, and I was too, if I’m being honest. I don’t doubt her driving ability, we have practiced at length, and I am sure she is ready, but sitting in the DMV office feels a little like being sent to the principal’s office and creates a sense of fear. I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I do. I guess subconsciously I know the Department of Motor Vehicles holds all the power and it’s not afraid to wield it against lowly citizens.
Gosh, I hope she gets a nice instructor who isn’t scary or warty in any way. I want this day to be one of joy that is burned into her brain forever. Getting your license is a core memory. I also don’t want to have to repeat this entire process again.
I still remember the day I got my license. I have a summer birthday and skipped third grade for a number of factors too lengthy to mention and not special in any way, which made me the youngest person in my class by far. I never really felt younger—until I all my friends got their licenses in our sophomore and junior year. I felt so left out, so slighted, so left behind, so young. It felt like it would be an eternity until I would get mine too and enjoy the feel of the open road.
After what felt like a million years of high school, I finally turned sixteen the summer before SENIOR year! Yes, that’s right, SENIOR year! I remember my parents dropping off my maroon, Ford Tempo at the DMV the night before my birthday. The plan was for my dad to drive me to the DMV as soon as it opened the next day on his way to work, and I would drive myself home. What could possibly go wrong with this plan?
On the day of my sixteenth birthday, we followed the plan to the letter. He pulled into the parking lot of the DMV at exactly eight o’clock in the morning and said, “I hope it all goes well.” He did not put the car into park. He did not double check my stack of paperwork to make sure I had everything. He did not come in to sit with me until I made it past the first checkpoint successfully. He did not give me a backup plan for what to do if something did go wrong. I did not have a cell phone in case of emergency. I don’t begrudge him for this though because this was completely normal in 1992 and it just felt like part of the expected process. I probably would have been embarrassed if he went it with me. I was far more embarrassed by my parents than my children are of me. I think that was also normal in 1992. I regret this unfounded embarrassment now.
The truth was, I didn’t even have to take the road test at the DMV because I had passed driver’s education in school. I had a waiver, the highly coveted pink slip of success, the ticket to independence. As long as I had all the other required forms and correct change, I was going to be good to go. It seemed much simpler than now.
I remember sitting in the freezing cold waiting room, nervous as all get out; Nervous that I would forget how to read letters and fail the eye test (the only thing I had to do), nervous I didn’t have the right amount of money, nervous that I was actually going to have to drive by myself for the first time.
I stared at the big clock on the wall with the loud ticking secondhand for almost an hour before my number was called. There was no such thing as Facebook or Candy Crush to distract me as I waited, just tick, tock, tick, tock—definitely not Tik Tok.
Alas, my number was finally called, and I remember beaming with pride when I passed the eye exam as if it was a huge accomplishment. I smiled an enormous smile for my picture after paying the correct fee. If I close my eyes and really concentrate, I can still remember the feel of my warm license in my hand, hot off the laminating machine.
I left the DMV and drove out of the parking lot with a little bit of nervousness and a whole lot of excitement. I was experiencing a freedom I had never known before. It was a big deal. Today feels like a big deal, too.
The days of learning to drive in school do not exist anymore in South Carolina. Here, you are required to hire a private driving agency and complete their course, which includes one very long day in the classroom where they try to scare you with videos of crashes, and three, two-hour driving lessons with an instructor. Once you have completed those requirements, you may elect to take a driving test with them which might get you waived from taking the road test at the DMV. . . or it might not. There is no guarantee you are safe because you may be “randomly selected” to take it again at the DMV. There is no pink slip promising you will get your license. Several of my daughter’s friends have been “randomly selected” as of late, and most have failed at that point because their nerves kicked into overdrive.
My daughter opted to bypass the “maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t” driving school test and just go for it at the DMV. This choice reflects her personality; confident, practical, and brave. I wish I was more like her.
In order to lessen my own nerves about the whole situation today, I wisely decided to bring my laptop with me to work on this blog as a distraction while I wait for her to either have “the best day ever” or “the most disappointing twenty minutes of her life.”
Ooh. . . she’s back.
Drum Roll. . . . . . .
I’m pleased to announce today is going down in the history books as a good day. The lady who administered the test (and who was not warty at all) just informed me that she passed with flying colors. She even parallel parked with proficiency.
All she has left to do is pass the eye exam and smile an enormous smile for her picture just like I did a long time ago.
I feel joyful and I am happy to be here to witness it all. Me being here with her is completely normal for 2025.
Later today, I will be the cool mom and let her drive herself to Target and to gymnastics practice. I will feel scared to let her go, but I will nonetheless let her go. It is part of life and a milestone day for me too as a parent.
I went through this same experience with my older two children, and I can say without a doubt, the best part of letting your children grow up and go out on their own is seeing them make the choice to come home. Watching them pull into the driveway, no matter how old they get, is the best feeling in the world.
Getting your driver’s license is an important right of passage, one of the first critical moments in your life when you feel a little less like a child and a little more like an adult… tell me what rights of passage are important to you in the comments below or feel free to share your driver's license experiences!
Have a great week and drive safe, everyone! Be mindful of new drivers!
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