New beginnings

“Even the greatest was once a beginner. Don’t be afraid to take that first step.” Muhammad Ali

This week’s conversation is around new beginnings, and this can mean different things at different times.  Whether a new relationship, new family or a new chapter of your life or even doing tasks that you don’t normally do.

For me, I drove to Adelaide and stayed overnight earlier in the week.  Whilst driving on my own is not unusual, it was over 800 kilometres over the two days.  When my husband and I travel – he is the designated driver, and I am the passenger.  Also note that lots of lanes can make me very anxious, so the city driving was a little scary at times and I had to concentrate and focus on my breathing in order to do this.

Then add in a multilevel carpark, did I also mention that I do not like confined spaces and this was a first to drive up to park the car on the first day, then down the following!  I even managed to reverse park the car, something that I rarely do – although it has been twice in three weeks now!

I just drove the car to the hotel, parked it and caught a taxi to the appointment due to timing issues.  I did manage to find my way back to the hotel quite easily, which is surprising given that I am geographically challenged most of the time.  Even managed to do this whilst on a team’s meeting!

The new beginnings for me this week, were to break though the anxiety of the tasks I had no choice in and carry on regardless.  The only other time, I had to bring down a car from a multilevel car park was in Melbourne five years ago and I asked the manager of the building to do this for me.  This time, I knew that the hotel did not have this service.  I had no choice but to proceed with caution.  This did not quell the nerves; however, I managed to do this without a mark on the car and without folding into total panic.  Made it to level 3 and back and managed at least 5 lanes of traffic in peak hour.

Happy to say, I have made it home safely and happy to go back to the passenger seat for our trip next week.