- I got the train home in daylight tonight.
- I took my first (full) mock theory test this evening and got ridiculously excited about passing it.
- On Saturday I went back to one of my favourite night clubs after a sabbatical from Manchester's night-life (post 11pm) for quite some time.
I think it's okay to say that the little things are really making a difference in life at the moment. The first step is acceptance. Subsequently, the highlight of my week at this point in time is my driving lesson.
About three weeks ago I was quite content to drive into Bolton via the usual route from my house. Nothing particularly dreadful happened and things were going well.
That was until my driving instructor asked me to pull over. He was smiling and, for some reason, that always makes me contemplate that I've forgotten to do something... It turned out that he was actually quite pleased with me, which is good right?
I thought so too. He pulled out a green piece of paper which looked rather official, more so than my usual white sheet full of pencilled marks and notes in the margins. That's when everything went wrong. I was to take a mock test, and he was going to sit in silence.
I may be shy sometimes but I do like to talk... yes I know that's an oxymoron if I ever saw one. A figure of speech that contains contradictory terms. As soon as he stopped talking to me, I lost it, just a little.
I didn't crash, I didn't come particularly close. However, I did stall, a lot. Mini roundabouts were a major culprit. Hills. Other drivers. I didn't trust myself, never mind them! It was like the last 6 months of one lesson a week were for nothing. Of course they weren't, but that's what I felt like when I got home that afternoon.
The next week was similar, if not slightly better. I learnt from my mistakes the previous week but still seemed to make one or two completely new ones! I took the opportunity to pinpoint where this was going down the pan.
- Mini - roundabouts
- Getting going again after a stall/panic.
These became the focus of the lesson on Saturday. I dealt with 4 mini-roundabouts at least and appeared to control the car enough not to come to a spluttering halt. This improved my mood greatly and gave me a smidgen of confidence to top up on what had diminished a few lessons before.
Experiences like this recently gave me an idea. I took a look at the areas in life which perhaps could be improved with a couple of tweaks here and there. Then I took care to come up with solutions which may not be ground-breaking, but will help me to progress. A bit of courage was required to discuss a few things with family and friends which I had been keeping to myself but now I feel so much better knowing that I am surrounded by people who I can share things with.
When you're striving to achieve something, sometimes it's easy to overlook what you have already done. I was guilty of that. I'm now taking a step back to appreciate what I do have. Driving will open some doors for me which have been real barriers recently but passing that mock test made me smile tonight.
