Listen to your Mom

Have you ever made a mistake? Yeah, me too, like procrastinating on this, but that’s not what I’m going to be talking about today. As a teenager, I have made several mistakes, all with good intentions, but some of the worse mistakes I’ve made have been right after my mom either gave me advice on what I was about to do, or just told me she didn’t want me doing it, but being the stubborn person I am, I do it.

It was New Year’s Eve, a very fun and exciting time, about to go from 2016 to 2017. There was a blizzard outside, coating the state of Maine in a blanket of snow. My friend, AHall18, asks me to come over to just hang out with her and her family and watch the ball drop. I ask my mom and she says she didn’t want me leaving. I fought her on the subject, convincing her I’d drive as careful as I had ever driven, and let me remind you, I had only had my license now for about 4 months and I had never driven in snow. I somehow convinced my mom to let me leave, I knew she wasn’t happy about the decision like I was. So I pack up somethings and head on over to A—. I make it there just fine, the roads weren’t even that bad, my mom was worried for nothing. We’re just hanging out on her couch with tons of food and having good conversation. Then me and A— look at our phones and see a text from our good friend, SDrew18, saying she’s having family and friends over and whoever wants to go is totally welcome. So me and Alex sit there, contemplating whether or not we should leave the safety of her home to venture out into the big snowstorm neither of us had ever faced ourselves. After deep thought A— decided not to go, and I decided I would go, and by the time I decided to go I had already been at A—-‘s for a solid hour. I leave A—-‘s with good intentions, thinking that I’m going to hang out with good friends and have some good food, because that’s obviously why I go anywhere. I start making my way there, doing about 5 under the speed limit because I was trying to avoid crashing my car, ironic. There was no one on the streets, everyone knew it was a bad idea to be out there, except me, of course. I make it to the light at fielders, I’m feeling good. Then I make a left turn onto Dump road. That road is already scary without snow, so this made it ten times worse. The speed limit is 35 there and I was doing about 30-33. I start to feel my car slip a little, so I try to correct it, then I’m going all over the road and next thing I know I’ve spun out and hit the guard rail. I have a moment of freaking out, and then I collect myself and calm down. Luckily, I wasn’t stuck, so I just back out and continue on my way, don’t get me wrong, I was very shaken up. I make it to Sydney’s and tell my parents and everything was alright.

In conclusion, I have become a better driver because of that accident. I try to avoid driving in the snow as much as possible, but sometimes it just happens. It was one of the scarier moments in my life, but I am thankful it turned out how it did, and I will never make the mistake of not listening to my mom about driving on the snow again.