My Biggest Secret

The Engine that Couldn't

My secret. My sad little secret. I have a lot of them like most people. Some are secrets because I want them to be and others because it never occurred to me to tell anyone about them. But this one is much more than that. Some people know about it and some don't, but I never offer it up as common information to anyone.

My secret is my shame and my triumph. My Ying and my Yang. My comfort and my awkwardness. Not many able adults in Los Angeles, any other big city or even small towns can say that they have this secret. And if they did, most people would look at them with admonishment. Although, it is my yang, I am not inherently ashamed of it. To me, it's as normal as walking down the street, which funny enough, is part of the big picture.

The look on people's faces is the worst. The astonishment, the gasps, the look as if they heard me wrong. How old are you? How do you live with it? Have do you function normally? Shouldn't you go see someone so that you could learn? I could study hard and be able to do it as well as anyone else. But I'm not sure. I'm still scared that it's been too long to really learn properly. And I'm just scared in general. That is my shame.

The real question is why. Why do I do have this secret? Why don't do what I don't do? For all those people who have the same problem as me, they all probably have distinctively different reasons than I do. Mine is because when I was 7 years old I was traumatized. A semi-truck was heading toward me on the road while I sat in my father's car and if not for my Dad, I might not be here today. Since that time, I never wanted to put myself behind the wheel of any car. This is why at the age of 26 I live in the heart of Los Angeles without a driver's license.