New Jersey has always been known for its aggressive drivers. Speed limits are merely suggestions, yields are rarely regarded, and stop signs take on the job of yields since most Jersey drivers will just roll through them. The first time I was ever taught to drive was when I was sixteen, completing the six hour-long practice with an instructor that serves as a prerequisite to obtaining a permit in the state of New Jersey.

That was also the first time I ever learned to parallel park (a decently useful skill when you live in a shore town along the Jersey coast). My driving instructor, whom I knew only by the name of Tom because my mother never bothered to tell me how to formally address him, warned me that this was the hardest part of the test. At the time, I nodded my head along because I really had no reason to fret. I had a whole 11 months before my road test was to take place when I would finally get my license, and my short-term memory would cause me to forget everything that I learned the day of my six hour-long driving practice with an instructor that served as a prerequisite to obtaining a permit in the state of New Jersey. I would probably have to re-learn how to parallel park within the month of my driving test anyways.

Tom warned me that this was the hardest part of the test. He didn’t seem to have too much confidence in my parallel parking skills. He so carefully walked me through it each time we practiced that he was handling the steering wheel more than I was. He didn’t even let me have a run through of my own- every time we practiced he reached for the wheel to help me turn. I didn’t say anything because I knew that even if he had let me perform the skill on my own, I wouldn’t be able to remember a bit of it by the next year.

Just as Tom wasn’t quite confident in my parallel parking, my parents weren’t very confident in my driving abilities altogether. They claimed that their fears of me driving were rooted in the fact that I was the first child, and being able to drive meant I was growing up, which they were afraid to see happen. Though I do believe that does contribute to a fraction of their fear, I think their greatest worry was my lack of awareness and tendency to lose focus. Their greatest fears were of the things that could cause an accident; their greatest fears were of the things that could hurt me.

Whenever I would drive with my parents after getting my permit, I could almost feel the fear radiating off of them. It was their slight reactions to my driving, it was their increased irritability that fed my anxiety and fueled it into a fire. Whenever my dad reached up to desperately hold the grab handle on the ceiling of the car, whenever my mom leaned as far back into her seat as possible while gripping onto the car door, I felt my nerves sky-rocket. I’d put my blinker on a moment too late and my dad would shout; I’d brake a tad bit too suddenly and he’d grunt in disapproval and let out an audible, exasperated sigh that would trigger my anxiety. I know that he was just afraid that these mistakes would get me into an accident, but his nit-picky comments and agitated manner were of no help to my driving.

“Watch your speed, Kayla. Did you even notice that you were ten miles per hour over the limit?!”

“You have to start braking earlier! This is insane, you can’t expect to make turns that quickly.”

“Pay more attention when merging- you aren’t checking enough.”

Pulling out of parking spaces was always difficult, especially with my father in my ear making comments about how quickly I was going, how I wasn’t watching for pedestrians, how I needed to start rotating the wheel much earlier or much later.

“You’re going wayyy too fast, Kayla. You shouldn’t even be touching the gas pedal yet!”

“But then I won’t be moving-”

“I don’t care. Foot off the gas pedal whenever you’re pulling out of a parking space, you hear me?”

“Dad I’m not even going fast. I literally just touched it.”

“You didn’t ‘just’ touch it. Going that fast, you could’ve hit someone if I weren’t here to tell you to brake.”

“I was doing just fine without your help.”

“Oh so now you’re being unappreciative? You can’t just expect to know how to drive, Kayla, you need to listen to my advice, and your mother’s. That’s the point of the permit.”

“I do listen-”

“No, you don’t. We wouldn’t be fighting right now if you did.”

Most of our conversations mirrored those whenever I drove around with him. Every car ride ended with slamming doors, faces red from the eventual screaming and crying that followed the arguments, and bad attitudes that weighted on both of us for the rest of the day.

I began to hate driving, mainly because of the anxiety and irritation I felt from my parents’ reactions, but also because I hated having to be aware of everything around me. I hated having to watch my speed and then calm down my heart rate when I realize I’ve been looking at the speedometer for one second too long and now it feels like I’m swerving off the side of the road but then I realize I’m not swerving and I’m completely... fine? Out of everything I hated about driving, I despised parallel parking the most. I could barely handle driving down the street without panicking, so being able to squeeze my car between two others on the side of a crowded street without being any more than six inches away from the curb scared me to the point of hyperventilation.

After weeks of enduring the panic and aggravation that came along with the responsibility of driving, I found every excuse possible to avoid sitting behind the wheel. I’d beg my mom to take me to work since I was “too tired” to drive myself, I’d tell my dad that I’d hurt my foot from tripping on the stairs. I didn’t want anything to do with driving if I could help it.

However, I begrudgingly found myself driving again. This decision followed plenty of rants from my mom about how it was important I get the practice in, about how if I keep pushing it off I won’t even remember how to put the car in reverse for the road test. We came to the agreement that I will start driving again, but as long as my parents didn’t force me to parallel park until just before the road test. Parallel parking was the most stressful part of driving for me, so I’d put it off for as long as I possibly could. Another thing I put off for as long as I possibly could was driving with my dad. I couldn’t handle his vexation while I sat at the wheel, nor did I want to constantly be in a bad attitude because of our fights about driving. He was much too irritable, and I was much too sensitive, so my mom ended up being the one to teach me most of what I know about driving.

The dreadful day arrived when my parents decided it was finally time to drag me out of my room, which I had been comfortably relaxing in earlier that morning, and teach me to parallel park. It was still about a week before the driving test, but they were insistent upon me getting some form of practice earlier than the night before.

They’d pulled my grandfather’s car and my dad’s old pickup truck out of the driveway and lined them up on the side of the road outside of our house, leaving a space between the cars of course for me to pull into with my small Nissan Sentra.

I plopped into the driver’s seat and started my car, nervous that my parallel parking skills would be so terrible that I’d stand no chance of passing the road test the next week. I turned on the car, slowly pulled out of the driveway, and started the process to parallel parking between the two beat-up cars. My dad was just as terrified as I was. His hand clutched the grab handle so tightly that his knuckles turned white (mine were becoming the same shade while I gripped the steering wheel), and he kept leaning forward to check the front of the car, then swinging his head around to check the back. His head whipped back and forth and back and forth, and though I could only see him in my peripheral vision, it was enough movement to make me dizzy, and it only added to my nerves. The entire time, he barked out orders of what I should be doing.

“Watch the front of the car.”

“Start turning right now.”

“Start turning left.”

Brake now.”

“Pull forward.”

When I finally pushed the gear shift to park, I relaxed back into the seat, leaning the back of my head into the fabric cushion and letting out a sigh of relief (I no longer had to worry about hitting any other cars whilst parked). My dad unlocked the passenger door and leaned his head out to check to see how far from the curb I was. When I looked back at him, he let out a breathy laugh and wore a shocked look on his face.

“You nailed it,” he told me. “When have you been practicing? No way you remembered that.”

I shrugged it off. “I only got it right because you were telling me what to do while I was pulling into the space.”

He shook his head, obviously disagreeing. But then he told me to pull out of the space, take a loop around the block, and try parking again. “This time, I’m not saying a word.”

I pulled up to the side of my grandfather’s car, lining up with it so that my front tire was aligned with his mirrors. Then I put the car in reverse, glanced all around to make sure no pedestrians were walking past and no vehicles were behind me, and I slowly backed up while cutting the wheel to the right. Once my front tire was next to the back tire of my grandfather’s car, I cut the wheel in the other direction and slowly eased myself into the tight space. I pulled forward to straighten out the car a bit and fit into the spot slightly better, and then finally parked the car. My dad’s jaw was limp with astonishment.

“How is parallel parking the only thing you know how to do? It’s supposed to be the hardest part,” he wondered aloud. Though I found it offensive that he thought that was the “only” thing I knew how to do, I kept it to myself and instead laughed. We decided that my parallel parking skills were oddly excellent, and that I’d had enough practice for the day.

“We’ll practice again one more time before the test,” my dad told me as we were walking back to the house. He was radiating pride, and he was also ecstatic that he didn’t have to spend nearly as much time teaching me to park as my mom did having to teach me to drive.

Days later, we decided on practicing again for the final time before the road test. It was the very day before the test, and fear oozed out of my every pore. Each bead of sweat that dripped down my temple, each exhale I breathed out seemed to be made of the anxiety that overcame me. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and even the sun seemed eager to watch my attempts to parallel park, its harsh heat a constant reminder of my audience. The two cars were set up just outside of the house, the same as they were the last time. My hands were involuntarily shaking when I slipped into the driver’s seat of the car. My dad settled into the passenger’s seat, and I pulled out of the driveway and into the street. Constantly running through my minds were reassuring thoughts: I parallel parked perfectly the last time, it’s just a few simple steps, there’s not too much pressure.

The moment I hit the back tire against the curb, though, I couldn’t help but break down in tears. Not even nearly pulled into the spot, I put the car in park and started crying. My dad, who’s always been hot-headed and got easily aggravated by how sensitive I was, began yelling at me, arguing that hitting the curb would not hinder my chances of passing the test. “As long as you don’t hit the cones, as long as you don’t hit the other cars, you’ll be fine. Will you calm down?! God, Kayla, will you stop crying? This is ridiculous.”

It’s also important to note that I am just as stubborn and hot-headed as my dad (I had to get it from somewhere), so even though I knew he was right, I refused to listen to any voice of reason and fought with him. “I can’t even pull into the spot, how am I going to pass? There’s no way,” I screamed at him. My voice was so loud and high-pitched that he winced when I shouted.

My dad shook his head and started laughing as I continued to cry and complain about how I would never be able to pass the road test. He began to laugh even harder as I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes, force a smile, and act as if nothing were wrong when my neighbors passed by on their bikes (I’m pretty sure I hadn’t fooled anyone, though, considering my eyes were puffy and my face was blotchy and red).

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered again and again, stepping out of the car and slamming the door shut as he walked away. “We aren’t doing this anymore. You can fail the test tomorrow, but I’m not helping you if you’re going to act like this.” I knew his reaction was justified.

Parallel parking shouldn’t be such a source of distress, and my complete overreaction to hitting the curb was a bit over-the-top, but I do have to acknowledge that he was doing a terrible job of getting me to calm down.

I sat in the car alone for nearly half an hour before my mom realized I had never returned to the house. She stormed outside, livid when she sat down in the passenger’s seat next to me. “Unbelievable,” she whispered. And for a while, she just kept repeating that same word. I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be an insult towards me or my father, but I’m almost positive it was geared towards both of us.

“Are you calm now?” she eventually asked, and I nodded as I pulled forward and drove around the block. “One more try, and you’ll get it, I’m sure.”

Mothers are never wrong.

She shook her head back and forth when I parked in the space, only about a centimeter away from the curb and perfectly centered between the two cars. “I gave that man one job, and that was to teach you how to parallel park. I taught you how to ride your bike, how to cook, how to drive, and he can’t even finish teaching you how to park without getting into an argument!”

As she left the car, I could hear her mumble the word, “useless” under her breath. We both walked back to the garage together, where my dad was waiting, clearly still irritated but curious as to see how I did.

I didn’t tell him how my parking was, though. I only apologized, and he returned it with an embrace.

“You’ll do even better on the test tomorrow.” I felt just as confident.