Community Corner
Op-Ed: It's Not All Dread at the DMV
One observer witnesses a rite of passage and reflects on what it means to be independent and free behind the wheel.
I started out the day Friday at Novato’s DMV office. It was 8 a.m., and I was there to renew my driver's license. I was half asleep, I hadn’t had time for my first daily infusion of coffee and I was cranky.
Waiting for my turn, I looked around at others who were waiting and noticed a young girl who was chatting with a man in his 40s, and it came to me, given how much they looked alike, that he was her father and that they were there to get her first driver’s license.
Obviously she was trying to contain her emotions, which it seemed were a combination of nervousness and unbridled excitement. She was filing out a DMV form and he was watching with a bittersweet look that many parents reveal when a child of theirs is at a milestone in their life. And the first drivers license is a big one — a coveted key that unlocks the door to freedom and independence, or so it seems when you are 16. I can still remember so many decades later how emancipating it felt to me.
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They were just ahead of me in line, and when she was called it was clear that she was nervous. She was careful to follow all the instructions she was given (as I stumbled over mine because I was watching her deal with her nerves rather than listening to what I was being asked), and apparently she passed the eyesight test with flying colors. She was told to go to another line where she would be photographed and given a written driver's test. Her father was now looking somewhat downhearted — no doubt happy for her on one hand and wanting her still to be 10 years old on the other.
As a journalist, I had thought about talking to them about the experience but decided against it. It was a special moment in both of their lives, one they both would remember forever, and I didn’t want to be a distraction.
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It all was especially poignant for me because I have a son who in a few months will be 16. I will soon be standing next to him at the DMV, a bundle of mixed emotions as I witness him making his first concrete steps into the adult world.
He too will be excited at his new freedom.
I too will be happy for him as I wipe a tear from my eye.
