It all started during the final months of my sophomore year.

Slowly but surely, kids were coming in with smiles plastered on their faces, along with bright lanyards attached to key chains and keys in their hands.  It didn’t take an expert to realize these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students had just received the magic card that let them drive alone, without the watchful eyes of a parent correcting their every move.

Yup, they passed the license test.

I was definitely jealous.  That goes without saying, but it was the beginning of this year that really made me understand just how painful it was to be an upperclassman without a license.

First off, I so regret my sophomore days when I started a 190-day countdown until the day I could get my permit.  My 16th birthday marked the beginning of the next four and a half months of driving torture.

As soon as the Norwalk DMV handed me that tiny plastic card, a step-by-step process of my life that would follow raced through my head.

1. I would immediately change my Facebook status to “PERMITTED!!!” in the attempt to get more “likes” than the last person to make this same update. Admit it juniors, you definitely counted the likes you got on your own permit update and compared it to everyone else’s.

2. I would find the first friend with a smart phone and casually slip in that they should “mupload” a picture of my permit and caption it “CLEAR THE ROADS!” or “Wow, they give out permits to anyone these days!” so that I could be one of the hundreds of kids with witty permit photos.

3.I would drive home with the radio blasting, looking so much older than I had before I got in the two-hour-long line of the DMV.  I mean, my mom would be in the passenger seat, but no one would see her, right?

Yes, I did complete the first two steps, but the third step is where I got it all wrong.  After I got in behind the wheel, buckled my seatbelt, adjusted my mirrors, and put the key in the ignition, I reached out to push the power button to the stereo.

“No radio, you’re a beginner,” were the words of my mom as she blocked my finger from pushing the button.

And that was only the beginning of my suffering.

Driving with a parent is equivalent to having an alarm clock that just doesn’t turn off no matter how many times you hit the snooze button.

“Slow down earlier.”

“Did you even SEE that bicyclist?”

“MERGE NOW!”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

Those phrases were intertwined into the every-day car conversations.  And even as my driving skills got better, she didn’t cease.

However not only is the freedom of driving with a parent not quite as joyous as it seemed like it would be, but what about whenwhen your parent isn’t home to drive you?

Here’s what happened to me.

My almost-neighbor and I carpool everywhere, and so on the rare occasions when neither of our parents could drive us to catch the bus for our soccer game came about, we didn’t realize until aboutmidnightof the night before.  It was way too late to bother any parent for a ride to the game the next morning.

The only solution was to ride our bikes.

So with soccer bags in tow, my teammate and I peddled as fast as our license-less legs could take us to catch the bus before it left.

It is safe to say that before we even got on the bus to go to the game, our legs felt like jello and we had broken a sweat.

Riding home was even better, because we got to pull the casual take-20-minutes-to-get-your-shinguards-and-cleats-off so that we could avoid the awkward stares of the other students who were around.

Although having only a permit can seem unbearable to me,  at least it is safe to say that my fellow juniors can agree that not having a license can be a pain.

“It’s sometimes annoying when I can’t go where I want, when I want,” said Matt Hodes ’13.

So as the days tick away until the moment where I might possibly walk into school with the feelings of “euphoria and freedom” that Bridget Johnson ’13 said she felt when she got her license, I remember these past months and hope that they will have somehow paid off.

I assume that getting my license will feel somewhat like finally getting to the top of a mountain that you have been climbing for four months.

Dramatic? Yes.

But then again, so were all those car rides with Mom and Dad.