Renewal

For most people, renewing a driver's license is merely a bureaucratic annoyance that must be endured every five years. For me, it’s a report card.

A woman’s driver’s license unflinchingly documents how she is managing the shift from girl to woman, from student to professional, from girlfriend to life partner, from no-strings-attached to mother.

The pictures on my first two Washington State driver's licenses, both taken in August at the Greenwood branch of the Department of Licensing, had turned out beautifully – nothing like the stereotypical mug shots people joke about. They were better, in fact, than most photos of me, taken in more natural moments and with better lighting. Unlike people who shamefully produce their driver's license, I’ve always been proud to display mine. Often, far too often, the me it portrayed looked much better than the fatigued, haphazard me that offered it up.

The first time I sat in the waiting room of the Greenwood facility, I had just quit an exciting international career to move to Seattle and live with a man I'd never spent more than two weeks with. I should have looked worried. But in that driver's license picture I look carefree and adventurous, dressed in a shirt of Cambodian silk, excited to begin a new chapter of my life.

Five years later, I sat in that same waiting room, fondling that portrait of the glowing, unafraid me, wondering what clues my new picture would give about how I had weathered the changes in my life.

I was older now, with shorter hair, married and at home with a baby. My traveling days were over. I was afraid that my new driver's license picture would make me look matronly and dull. And nothing about the dingy Greenwood waiting room, with its rudimentary camera equipment, suggested otherwise. But the laminated me that the clerk handed back did not disappoint.

Five years after that, I’d spent months worrying about my next renewal picture, unwilling to believe that I could be lucky a third time. I was now a stay-at-home mother of two, who’d been out of the workforce for some time.

Would the new photograph capture the old adventurous me, who I hoped still existed underneath the minivan mom I’d become?

All year I’d been aware of this looming assessment of how well I was doing at finding balance in my life. I’d embarked on a diet and exercise regimen so that when renewal time rolled around, I’d be within the 10- pound acceptable range for lying about my weight. I studied my five-year old picture, convinced that wearing brightly colored clothes and make-up was key. I timed my hair appointment so that the cut and color would be fresh, but not too fresh, come picture day. Though I was offered the chance to renew my driver's license for an additional year by mail, I declined. I was ready now. Who was to say I would be ready a year from now.

On D-day I donned a fuchsia shirt and added my trademark lavender eye-shadow and pink lipstick and headed to the Greenwood licensing center, where I sat for an hour- and-a-half in the cold, beige waiting room, reflecting on why this photo mattered so much. If looks are the outward manifestation of state of mind, I decided, then I wanted to be satisfied with what I and others saw.

When my number came up, I walked confidently up to the counter and flashed a bright smile. And when the clerk handed me my new license, I saw a strong, healthy woman, the first lines of wisdom forming around her eyes.

Five months later, on a bleak January morning, my wallet was stolen and along with it, my driver's license. This time there was no opportunity for vanity. I needed a new driver's license now.

I expected the worst. The theft had unnerved me. It was winter. Instead of tanned and healthy, my skin looked sallow and green, my face careworn.
Though it seemed futile, I donned a pink sweater and the same bright make-up that I had worn the summer before.

The Greenwood facility was crowded. As I stood in line to get a number, a poster caught my eye. "If you've been issued a driver's license within the past two years, you can apply for a replacement on line." I want to say that it was simply the prospect of a long wait that made my decision. That vanity had nothing to do with it. And it's true that five minutes after I logged onto the Department of Licensing website, my application for a replacement license was processed. But the truth is, I wasn't ready to let go of that picture. I didn't want to believe that my confidence and strength were impermanent.

The Greenwood branch of the Department of Licensing closed on April 24. My driver’s license, which I was able to renew on line last year using the previous picture, expires in 2013. By then I will be the menopausal mother of two daughters going through puberty. I’d like to think that the wisdom I will have accumulated will shine through in the picture, or at least that I will have the self-confidence not to care how it turns out. But I’m not hedging my bets.

If anyone knows where the talented clerk/photographers of the Greenwood branch of the Department of Licensing have been reassigned, please let me know.