Today is the day the girl has been waiting for with all the combined anticipation of Christmas, her Sweet 16 and her first high-school dance all rolled into one.
Driver's License Day — and all that it represents as far as expanded freedom and another giant step toward adulthood — is finally, finally, finally here.
Through all the too-wide turns, too-sudden stops and jack-rabbit accelerations, she's aged her father prematurely and driven him (pun intended) to the brink of madness with incessant chatter about her provisional license, cars and all the things she suddenly finds within her grasp.
"Just think, Daddy, this time (today) I'll be driving all by myself," she said in the truck on the way home from school Wednesday. "I can get a job, go see Lindsay and go to the mall whenever I want."
God help me. At least she still has to ask to borrow a car.
Facing restrictions
North Carolina has had a graduated driver's license program since 1997. Under the graduated program, a kid has to advance through several stages of learning before getting completely unshackled.
At level one, a kid must be supervised by a parent or other responsible adult who's had a license for at least five years. At level two, a kid gets a limited provisional license after passing a road test that allows her (or him) to drive alone between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. and places restrictions on the type and number of passengers allowed in the vehicle.
Level three is gloves off, no restrictions, and a young driver can only get there with months of good driving and no traffic citations.
Those are the rules, written in plain English. They're excellent rules, too, as statistics compiled by the N.C. Highway Patrol show a steady decline in the number of teen deaths on the roads.
By mid-2010 — the most recent data immediately available — 28 teens had been killed in wrecks. During the same time frame in 2009, there'd been 47 such deaths. Better, but still too many.
What the rules and statistics don't spell out, though, is the weird combination of terror and pride felt by parents watching their offspring grow into responsible young men and women steering 2-ton steel missiles down the highways and byways.
I've felt (and am feeling) all of the above watching my 16-year-old daughter, Raven, prep for the road test she hopes to pass this afternoon. Ugh.
Something lost, something gained
In Raven's case — a lovely, smart, respectful and generally responsible high school junior — most of the angst is not over her driving or the jarring increase in car insurance rates.
Rather, it's for the impending loss of our time together driving to or from school. She goes to Bishop McGuinness, and because it's a good 25 minutes away, that's prime bonding time.
The commute is where I catch up on all the news fit for Twitter and Facebook: Who's taking whom to the prom, the BF situ ("boyfriend situation," for those who don't speak teenage girl) and where she might like to go to college.
It's where we make plans. ("Would you like to go camping with me this summer?" With the dirt and bugs? Ewwww. No thanks, Dad ). It's where I started to learn a whole new language: LOL, IMHO, TMI.
And it's also where we sometimes talk about growing up and making good choices. We have discussed the perils of drinking, sex-addled teenage boys, college choices and yes, the road test.
"Daddy, what if I don't pass?" she said Wednesday. "I'm nervous."
Me, too, Bunny. But not for the reason you think. I'm nervous about what I might lose, not what you stand to gain.
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