Personal Narrative: The Driver On Six Forks

My white knuckles clutched the wheel as my little car whined and jerked into high gear, finally accelerating onto Six Forks. Barely a mile from home, and driving was already intimidating. My credentials were impeccable. I had passed a dreadful thirty hour class with a teacher whose voice carried to the moon and proven my driving prowess to a cartoonish instructor sporting a beret, plaid shirt, corduroy jacket, billowy pants, and a pair of suspenders. A pair of rimless spectacles made his eyes appear small and beady while accentuating his pudgy face. There was no conceivable reason to be nervous, but I could not shake the grim sense of foreboding that hovered over me.
Every other driver on Six Forks preyed on my vulnerabilities. I remained in the right-hand lane the entire twenty minute journey to school, afraid to switch lanes on the off-chance an impatient driver might cut me off. I was the only commuter in Raleigh adhering to the speed limit, being overtaken by other teenagers on their way to school, business men rushing to the office, and soccer moms in their ponderous minivans. The whole world was passing me and my little green CRV.
Turning off the ignition, I heaved a sigh of relief to unwind from the nerve-wracking experience. A thought crept its way to the front of my mind, disturbing my relaxed state; I was driving. I had dreamt of this since I was a tyke in lower school, and here I was, driving myself to school. While I would assuredly enjoy the freedom driving offered, the feeling was anti-climactic. It was not everything I had chalked it up to be. Why is it, that after so many years of dreaming, the former magic of driving had vanished? Now it was just a means of achieving a vague sense of independence. After a moment’s pause, I finally concluded that I was older. Somewhere, between here and there, I had grown up just a