Summer@Home: What I Learned

People keep asking me, "When are you going to write the 'what I learned' blog?" It actually started before the driving restriction ended. They seem eager to hear how I was changed by seven months not being able to drive.

I actually started writing this post a couple of months ago. But I got a ways into it and realized something:

I won't know what I've learned until it's tested.

When you are in school, you can sit in a classroom every day, read the assignments, do the homework. But until the test comes, you can't really separate what you've learned from what you've merely been present for.

It's the same way with my seven months of no driving. I could tell you about the experiences I had while not driving. But I can't really write about what I learned — how it changed me — until I'm back in the driving world. Until it's tested.

There's a part of me that thinks that two weeks in is still too early. I don't yet know what will migrate from short-term to long-term memory. But I'm tired of people asking, so here goes.

I'm not going to explain all of them at once because this would turn into more of a dissertation instead of a blog. So I'm splitting my lessons learned into two groups:
1. My relationship with stuff.
2. My relationships with people.

PART 1: My relationship with stuff.


 

I learned how to do without, and I learned to plan backwards.
When I could go to the grocery store any time I wanted, I would make menus with this thought primary: What do I want to cook this week? Anything we didn't have, I could run to the store and get.

When you don't get to choose when you go to the grocery store — or when you are relying on others to do your shopping for you — you plan backwards: What do I have to work with? Then, if necessary, you fill in the gaps.

I also learned to improvise, get creative, and make things instead of buying them. Like making ghee.

This lesson was tested almost immediately. Right after I started driving, it was Greek Day at Joshua's school. He wanted to dress up like Poseidon. (Joshua's current obsession is the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Percy is the half-blood son of Poseidon.) After determining — not surprisingly — that I am not crafty enough to make a trident, I searched online for one. I found that they were available at Party City. Great! There are three Party City stores near us.

At the first one, we found a trident, but not Poseidon's trident. This one was actually more like a devil's pitchfork and was red, not gold. We bought it, but I was determined to find the gold one. I had already planned in my head how to hit a couple of other Party City locations the next day when I stopped myself. "What would I have done if this had happened just one week ago?"

I would have made do.

I would have taken a can of gold spray paint that we had in the basement and made my red devil's pitchfork into a gold Poseidon trident.

So that's what I did. This lesson, apparently, stuck.

I learned that my car is "my space" sometimes more than my home is. 
I have a black and white tote bag that lived in my car, Thelma, back when she was with us. (Specifically, it is an organizing utility tote from Thirty-One.) It held all of my automotive necessities:

• pens and pencils
• granola bars
• carpool signs
• a notebook
• a book
• magazines and catalogs
• a stack of note cards and envelopes
• my plastic bag of gift cards and restaurant coupons
• a reusable grocery bag
• empty Starbucks coffee bags. (Did you know that if you buy Starbucks coffee at the grocery store and bring the empty bag to an Sbux store, you can get a free tall drip? Who knew?)

In other words, all of the "stuff" I might need when I was out and about or found myself alone in the car with some time on my hands.

When I stopped driving — and particularly when Thelma died and we had to clean her out — suddenly my black and white tote bag had no home. I can't tell you how many times I would be out and need something in that bag. But it wasn't there. I didn't have a car that was mine, so I had no place for my stuff. It was very disconcerting, and frankly, made me cry more than once.

My car is like my office. Yes, other people may come and go from it, but the bottom line is, it's my space. And I like it that way. My black & white bag is perched on the passenger seat next to me where it belongs, and I am happy that way. (And because my car is new and relatively unused, it's so clean! I can hardly stand to touch it, I want it to stay that way so badly.)

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Tomorrow, I'll discuss how not driving affected my relationships with people. I might even post the list of things I learned that I started writing back in June. It's kinda funny.