Be Brave Traveler

Write about a challenge you faced and overcame.

I didn’t post this yesterday! OMG I’m late! But really, yesterday I would have answered the question with a simple “writing this post”. Yesterday was a rough day. Nothing spectacularly out of the ordinary, and that my dear readers, was exactly why it was a rough day.

So, I said to myself, it’s okay to wait until tomorrow to write this post. Some days you just have to do the bare minimum.

On to the prompt, a challenge I faced and overcame…

I grew up in a city that had really good public transportation. I could get just about anywhere I wanted to by bus or train. So, there was zero sense of urgency when it came to learning how to drive.

I first tried to learn when I was 17 and we’d moved a couple miles from the furthest station on the metro. I was great at parallel parking, but my nerves were always an absolute mess.

I tried again, getting my learner’s permit for the second time, when I moved to a city that did not grasp the concept of pedestrians, let alone public transportation. I wasn’t there long enough to really learn.

Driving just wasn’t going to be a thing for me. But, as I got older (and calmer) I started to consider it again. I mean, I always loved road trips, but it wasn’t fair to convince people to go on a road trip if I couldn’t share the responsibility. There was that one time I bought an electric keyboard I was sure I could get home on the metro. Well, I went all the way across the city with a shopping cart, and the keyboard didn’t even remotely fit into it. I had to call a friend to come rescue me and my new keyboard.

The final straw was when I found myself coming from the hardware store with huge pieces of plywood on the bus. How could I be a homeowner and do the appropriate maintenance if I couldn’t transport the supplies?

Fortunately at that same time one of my closest friends was renting out one of the rooms in my house. This was a friend who had a mind like mine. If anyone could teach me how to drive, it was him.

Finally, after checking all the boxes; hours of driving practice, driving school, etc I was able to pass my driving test with flying colors. Shortly after that, I bought a car when those car delivery services were just getting off the ground, and the guy who dropped it off insisted I took it for a test drive. He had no idea I’d only just gotten my license. What 37 year old buys a car who isn’t really sure she knows how to (or wants to) drive? This 37 year old.

Barely a year later I drove that car 12,000 miles across country. By. My. Self.