drive confidently

I drove in America.

Not very much though. And not at all confidently. It was scary.

I mostly my my other half drive. Sorry, love.

On Wednesday night I drove to my dressmaking course. It was raining and it was dark. I was scared. There were cars parked along one side of the street such that only one car could pass and I worried about what would happen if something came the other way.

On the way back I decided on the spur-of-the-moment that I wasn’t didn’t want to drive past the parked cars in the dark and the wet, so I thought that I’d go home through town so I wouldn’t need to pass them. I didn’t know how to get to town from where I was, but I jut followed the signs. I got to a roundabout and didn’t know which exit to take so I went right aroud the roundabout and figured out which exit to take.

I think that is the first time that I have been confident enough whilst driving to lack confidence. I wasn’t worried that I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care what people thought if they saw me go round a roundabout one and a half times, and I didn’t think I was chickening out by avoiding the parked cars – just sensible.

I don’t know if the concept of being confident enough to lack confidence will make sense to anyone else, but it does to me, and I see it as quite a large leap forward in being able to achieve this thing.

Our car is in for some work and we have a courtesy car. My other half has some stuf on at work which meant that today I have driven the courtesy car. It’s a horrid little thing, but I did manage to drive it. There wasn’t even too much panicing; no more than if I’d had to drive our normal car to work. I think I’m showing an improvement in this thing, although I still only drive if I have to.

My parents have come to visit and had driven a long way. We wanted to go into Cardiff and I let my dad drive despite the fact that he’d already driven a long way and has a bad knee. I hate this paniced feeling I get just thinking about driving. I’m sure I could have managed it now; but I didn’t feel at all like that before we went out.
Sometimes I really suck.

I drove to town today. Twice. I had to go and buy some wool needles so I could finish my ‘knit a scarf’ thing, and I had to go back later to buy some different sized knitting needles to knit the matching hat. I drove fine both times. But I was as freaked out as ever before getting in the car on all 4 occasions. Oh well, more practice I suppose.

Yes, I know that the only way to do this is to practice. The thing is that I’m actually not too bad when I’m in the car and driving. It’s the thinking about it in advance that makes me panic. Okay, some history: It took me 18 months to learn to drive. 1 year after I passed my test, I got to drive again. I’d pretty much forgotten how, and I was in a city. I drove for about a week. 4 years later my fiancee and I got a car. He is a great driver, I’m scared silly. So he does all the driving. I managed to drive several hundred miles each way to visit my family a couple of weeks ago and I was fine. I know I can drive, but it still scares me! I’ve bought a GPS which has helped a lot, because it means I can concentrate on the driving and not on where I’m driving to. So I need to practise more, and hopefully stop the panicing.