before 2008, i was a commuter. i learned to commute when i was in high school, whenever i had to stay late in school and the school bus could not wait for me, which rarely happened. i took the LRT, rode jeeps and tricycles to get home. when i got to college, i rode the bus to UP diliman (the MRT did not exist yet) every morning at 6am during my freshman year. later on i rode with friends, paying for my share of the gas, but if i had to stay late in school, i commuted on the way home.
when i got to law school, they were already building the skyway, and traffic was horrible on SLEX, so my parents put me up in a boarding house for two semesters, and i went home only on the week ends, when my dad would pick me up every friday. when i transferred to another school to continue my studies i commuted again, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, because my classes ended at around 9pm and i had other activities in school, so sometimes i would get home by 11pm. most of the time, though, i would commute only until taft avenue/vito cruz, since i could hitch a ride with my siblings who were studying in that area.
i took up driving lessons in 1999, during my second year in law school. it was a 5-hour course, spread over 5 saturdays, and it was offered by socialite driving institute. my mom said it was the best driving school there was, and she had taken lessons there as well. i first drove a toyota (i think it was a toyota), manual transmission, and the instructor led me through BF homes, exiting to CAA and the alabang-zapote road. after the course, they helped me get my driver's license, which had been used only as a means of identification and was not renewed on time, until 2008.
even after i had been issued a driver's license, i refused to drive any of our vehicles. my usual excuse was that i didn't have any car to drive, since my dad, mom and brother drove all our cars. then my brother left, and my sister learned to drive and started taking the car to work, so i was left again as the commuter in the family. at least, i reasoned, i was an expert commuter, who knew what jeeps/buses/trains to take, and how to avoid attracting undue attention. in short, i was the only one in the family who would qualify as a street-smart commuter (i think).
then my sister left. there was no more excuse for me not to drive, since i could choose which car to drive. but i still resisted.
so what happened?
one fateful night in 2008, my parents were not in the country, and the rain was falling hard. i had already missed my class in graduate school because i could not commute in the rain. but i had to get to work, and i could not use the excuse that it was raining. so i rode the tricycle, got so freaking wet, and thought of how pathetic i was that i could not drive a car when i had a license and i had a car to drive.
at that time, my driver's license had expired on my birthday, so when i had resolved to drive no matter what, i renewed it 2 months later, and paid the penalty for late renewal. and then i took the chance by taking out the car from the garage and driving to work. and i have been driving ever since.
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