Driving

Feb. 4^th  

Yesterday I forgot how to drive. I had driven earlier in the day—a very stressful day in which I had had to take my cat to the vet and back—and I knew how to drive then. This time, I sat down in the driver’s seat and for a moment didn’t know what to do. What is that thing? Oh, it’s a parking brake. I need to release it. And I have to turn that key in the ignition, I suppose, but how far? And what is this thing I have my hands on? What is it called? Oh right, steering wheel. And then I have to press the clutch in (K.B. drove standard, too…).

I slowly pulled away from the curb and drove down our street, but I felt I had to concentrate: “Okay, when there’s a yield sign I really have to be careful to look both ways.” I wasn’t confident that I knew the rules of the road instinctively anymore; it was more like I had to force myself to dredge them up from the depths of my memory. 

This episode passed within a few minutes. But what did it mean? Has grief so addled my brain that basic tasks are periodically foreign to me?