I have this recurring dream about driving.

I used to drive all the time, but for the most part I haven’t driven in years.

I learned to drive later than most people. In New Jersey, you get your learner’s permit at 16 and your driver’s license at 17. But we were living in Tokyo when I was that age, and in Tokyo, there was no need to learn to drive – I could take trains everywhere. So I didn’t learn to drive until the summer after my first year of college, when I was 18 and had been back in the U.S. for almost a year.

When I first learned to drive, I was kind of scared. I mean, a car is an enormous piece of machinery that goes very fast and can kill people. But I had a great instructor. The first time we drove on a highway I was nervous, but I’d had several lessons up to that point, and it wound up being fine. When it was finally time to take my driver’s test, I aced it. At the end of the summer, I got my first car – a used Honda Accord hatchback – and drove it the 420 miles back to Charlottesville for my second year of college.

That November, Bill Clinton won the presidential election. I was convinced I wouldn’t live to see him take office. The time between Election Day and Inauguration Day contained two holidays – Thanksgiving and Christmas – which meant driving round trip between New Jersey and Virginia not once but twice. Those four seven-hour trips contained plenty of chances for me to die in a car accident.

But I made it intact, with no accidents, and I lived to see Maya Angelou recite a poem and Bill Clinton take the oath.

I grew to love driving. I used to hop in the car and go on spontaneous road trips. One summer day in Charlottesville, a friend and I decided on the spur of the moment to drive to the Civil War cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Another time I decided to drive up to D.C.; another time, Appomattox Courthouse. (Virginia contained beautiful countryside.) One summer while living at my parents’ house in New Jersey, I decided to drive up to Harvard University and back, on the same day, just because I felt like it.

I fell in love with the idea of the Great American Road Trip. I read The Majic Bus and fell in love with it. I read Travels With Charley.

During my eight years at UVa, I drove between New Jersey and Charlottesville countless times. There were a few trips between Charlottesville and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as well.

After graduating from college, I decided to visit a friend of mine in Denver, for two weeks. I drove from New Jersey to Colorado by myself, and it took three and a half days: through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, the southeast corner of Wyoming, then down into Colorado. On the way back I visited a friend in Cincinnati, so I drove through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and some other states.

After law school (during which I had another, newer, Honda Accord) I moved back up north and lived in the suburbs for a year. Then I moved to Jersey City, at which point I no longer needed to drive, so I got rid of my car. I haven’t owned a car since 2000. The last time I drove extensively was on a 2004 business trip in San Diego. Since then, I’ve barely driven at all.

A year and a half ago I decided I wanted to keep my skills up, so one afternoon I drove my parents’ car around the New Jersey suburbs a bit. My driving skills came back pretty quickly; I was a little rusty and tentative, but I could do it. Last Thanksgiving, Matt and I took turns driving his dad’s car around a school parking lot. But that’s it.

A couple of years ago the dreams started. In the dream, I’m behind the wheel of a car, driving somewhere, and I feel so relieved and exhilarated. Relieved because I still know how to drive. Exhilarated because driving is power.

And it’s more. I told my therapist about these driving dreams, and she said, what do you think these dreams mean? And I said: Power. Freedom. Autonomy. She nodded: yup.

I miss driving. In New York City you have to rely on public transit to get anywhere. You go where it takes you. You don’t get to be in control. You have no privacy. You can’t just leave the city whenever you want. You can’t just go up to New England.

Many of the choices I make in life are based on fear and the desire to maximize safety. But I have this other side, the side that likes to take spontaneous road trips – the side that wants to hop in a car and just go somewhere. The side that wants to expand my comfort zone. These two sides of me are often in battle with each other.

So I keep having the dream.