We each have our own private quests, those goals we tried — or keep trying — to achieve. As we struggle and strive, the process becomes its own destination

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach | Digital Artwork: Meital Ashkenazi

When my father taught me to drive, he told me, “Driving is one of those things in life where your first mistake may be your last.”

No pressure or anything.

I remember the first time he brought me to the highway. I felt like I was inside a blender. All those cars whooshing past was dizzying and overwhelming. I left the experience nauseated and shaken. Maybe the combination of driving and highways just wasn’t my thing.

Years later, when the shadchan apologized that my date (who later became my husband) was having trouble renting a car, I was overjoyed. People marveled at my flexibility and admired my willingness to take public transit on our dates. Me, I was just relieved to not have to be in a car on a New York City street.

But the night we got engaged, he rented one. And we sideswiped a bus on the way down Ocean Parkway, hitting another car in the process. We got engaged while waiting for the police to file a report. (Yes, really.)

As a young kollel couple living in the heart of Flatbush, we were fine without a car. We had the Q and B trains in our backyard (to the extent that there was a yard), we didn’t want to pay for gas and insurance, parking was a nightmare, and who wants to sit in traffic? No, thanks.

We tried the driving thing again two years later when we borrowed a car to move from Brooklyn to Queens. I’m not sure why I agreed to drive. We got into a bad accident, totaling the car when I made an illegal left turn onto Main Street in Queens. After a traumatic night in the hospital, everyone, including my six-week-old baby girl who was in the back seat, was deemed completely fine. The owner of the car was understandably angry, and I was devastated. And resolute — never would I drive in NYC again.