permis de conduire

i passed my driving exam an hour ago. a rite of passage. or at least that was that i thought it was.
since i've had an american license for more than a decade this doesn't seem to be a big deal - but it is. this was the moment that i acknowledged the local bureaucracy, that i accepted to be tested by the "locals", after having been driving in this same system forever, or at least that's what it feels like. so what are the lessons learned?
i know how to drive. but i've actually never doubted that. what i have doubted was whether i'd ever get into trouble for dodging the law. but that was also one of the perks! sticking it to the man. and not putting anyone else in jeopardy (now that's formal, since HE passed me, after i accepted him as an authority. makes HIM kind of like Him). i think i'll miss that feeling of being on "the other side of the law" every time i sit in the driver's seat.
i can face obstacles. not that i've recently had reason to doubt that. in the past past fortnight alone i've finished a one-year translation of a book (which had cost me my soul, social life, nerves, not to mention time and intellectually crippling me), i finished 2008 with 4,500 extra kilometers on my bike, having compelted the greatest climb available in serbia (i don't know that anyone else has done it, start to finish), i work like a maniac, and i'm not affraid of failure - which has kept me gunning for andd achieving higher goals than i'd otherwise even attempt.
i'm never satisfied. why should i be? this was nonsense. "you want a goal? go run another maraton." there's always new things i want. i'm unsatiable. satisfaction doesn't help quell the craving. right now i'm sitting in a cafe, thinking about how i haven't gone running in months. and i have new shoes that have never seen asphalt!
it doesn't really change anything i'm essentially the same person that i was yesterday. i'm essentially the same person i was a year and a half ago, but i've forgotten who that is exactly... now that the peak of the holidays has passed (just a "few" "minor" ones left) it's time to get back to business. and what's next is getting back to things like this, things like people, things like getting back in shape, things like the next book which is waiting. those things remain, those things will always remain. i guess that is what my life is about. at least for the moment.
life is THE adventure.