It’s April 2nd, my mother and I were on our way to Walker a nearby town, so that I could take my driving test. This is one of my biggest days of my life. I was excited, but at the same time a little nervous, because I didn't want to fail and embarrass myself. I was talking to my mom and she could tell something was up, so she went ahead and asked. 

“What’s wrong? You seem quiet today”.

I thought to myself for a moment and responded.  

 “What if I fail? Everyone is going to make fun of me, how could I show my face at school with everyone knowing I failed”.

  “Well then I would probably have to drive you around a little longer then wouldn’t I?”.

I could tell by the smirk on her face that she thought she was so clever coming up with that. 

We pulled into the building where we were supposed to meet, and there were only a few people there. I overheard someone say that they were retaking the test for the 3rd time, and that definitely did not help my nerves.

I sat in my chair waiting for about ten minutes until I saw a shorter old lady and a thin taller woman with brown hair. I was praying that I would get the taller woman because she looked nicer and I’d heard better things about her. 

Finally, it was my turn to go, and I was definitely relieved when the taller woman called my name. She asked me some questions about the car and some of the interior stuff before we could start. I pulled out onto the road and it was silent for most of the ride other than when she would tell me to turn one way or the other. *Everything was going smoothly until we turned down a road and I saw some cones.

I always struggled with cones, I felt my palms start to sweat. The noise of surrounding cars got louder and louder as I got more nervous. The car had a back-up camera, but we were not allowed to solely rely on that. I pulled up to the first set of cones and did my parallel park and I nailed it first try. I was much more worried about the back in than I was about the parallel park.

I then pulled just past the second set of cones on the corner back in and put the car into reverse. When all of a sudden I hear this loud beeping noise and it scared the crap out of me. It was at that moment that I remembered that I had sensors on the back of the car. So I pulled back out and corrected and went in just as smooth as the parallel park.

 “Wow those back up cameras really saved you there didn’t they?” The instructor said.  “Yeah I got lucky” I said half heartedly. “That isn’t going to affect my score is it?” I asked the instructor.  “Not enough to fail you” she said hinting to me that I passed. I didn’t pick up the hint but the smell of the finish line filled the air as we crept closer and closer to the starting parking lot. She wrote my final score of 84% on the top of my paper and iI could just taste the sweet sweet victory of passing.

After the test was over It was a bittersweet feeling. I was happy to finally have the freedom of being able to drive myself wherever I wanted. It also never really hit me how fast life has been moving. It feels like just yesterday I was playing in my backyard with the neighbor kids in Sartell. I never realized how much I miss those days and how fast life keeps moving.