For the past 2 years I’ve just been waiting for this part of my life to begin. Ever since my provisional driving licence came in the post I was ready to get my driving lessons going and pass my test. I began lessons a few weeks after my 17th birthday and passed my theory first time.
Now, ever since then, I’ve felt like my journey to passing my test has been one step forwards, one step back. Every time I managed to get one step closer to being able to drive, something else seemed to go wrong. About a month after my parents bought me my first car I had to stop my driving lessons due to not having enough money to pay for them leading up to Christmas. I finally started them up about 18 months later, they went really well, and I booked my test. 2 days before my test my car failed its MOT massively and I had to get rid of it. I also failed my test that time round. In those 3 days I suddenly went from having a means to drive and a prospect of being on the road within the next week, to no car, no licence and not much money – back where I was when I first started my lessons.
I went into about a week of feeling like my life was just falling apart. I spent most of my spare time trying to find another cheap car that wasn’t already broken – which did not go well. Everything I could find was either out of my price range, was too far away to collect without being able to drive it back or had done well over 100,000 miles already. I felt very defeated and like the universe just didn’t want me behind a wheel. It felt much longer but it was probably only actually a week before I finally managed to talk myself into a new plan.
OG Plan: buy new car, pass next test, insure, tax and drive same day.
New Plan: pass test THEN find and buy a car knowing I can drive it home. This new plan allowed me to widen my search parameters further than just my county.
On 26th June 2018 I passed my driving test second time round with only 3 minors. I was very excited and pretty speechless for about an hour. I was over the moon to have FINALLY achieved this life goal after the over 2-year build up. Next step was to find a good car.
After almost 2 weeks of scouring every website I could think of to find a second-hand car – eBay, GumTree, Auto Trader, etc – I finally found one that was perfect. I contacted the seller straight away, and it was mine within 24 hours! Unfortunately, I hit another wall – AGAIN. I could neither tax nor insure it yet. Brilliant. So now I had a car and a licence, but still couldn’t drive it. Very frustrating. I thought that the problem we needed to resolve could possibly take another 6 weeks to deal with. Another month plus. I was the dead eye smiling emoji irl. After a few hours I managed to persuade myself that everything happens for a reason, and if its meant to be this way then so be it. The next day, I found out I could do what I needed to do at the post office and sorted everything the very next day! I felt like it was the universe rewarding me for being patient. I was on the road 2 days later driving by myself – which still feels crazy.
It’s only really been 4 days, but I’m already in love with my little car and my new-found freedom. I still can’t believe that I passed, and that I don’t have to do anymore lessons. It still feels strange and like its not real and I’ll wake up for my next lesson soon.
This is my little Micra. My mum has dubbed her “little blue-moo”, inspired by Blue Cow from the Cebeebies show Story Makers (if you know, you know). I don’t refer to her as that, but she is definitely a her, look how cute she is. And she’s all mine.
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