Sunrise and Self-Confidence

Today was different. I felt the rumblings of “I don't know if I can do it,” but I squelched them. I did do it.

The Confidence

This morning I took my second drive ever in my new motorhome. A new name came to mind: Mi Casa. I don't know if it's going to stick yet. I'm not Spanish, so I feel like it might not feel authentic, even though I love the language. Casa Rueda?

When I woke up this morning, I was not really thinking about sunrise. Then I realized that it wasn't earlier, but later now that the time had changed. There's a line that I don't usually see. There's a line between making yourself do things that you don't need to make yourself do, and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to do things that you do want to do. This morning I pushed myself to do something I knew I wanted to do, but was having trouble starting.

After yesterday's post, I knew that now that I'm putting this stuff out there, now that I'm being public with my vulnerability, I need to be true to myself (and brave). So, if it takes me being true to the people of the world in order to be true to myself, then I'll try that. They say when you announce something to people it keeps you more honest, and I see a lot of evidence in that.

This morning I had a second chance to take my rig to the sunrise and practice driving... and to conquer my fear. There is no bravery without fear. In fact, if you weren't afraid in the first place-- if other people weren't afraid of the thing-- it wouldn't be called bravery, it would just be doing a thing, right?

It's tough to overcome fear. It's tough to overcome inertia. And yet, it is so worthwhile to overcome both and feel powerful about yourself. This morning, all I did was drive about 10 miles and look at the sunrise at the same beach that I go to at least 50 times a year. But this morning was different-- I drove a house to look at the beach, and I survived.

The Beach

I laughed when I heard there was a wind chill, because I thought it was 60°. Boy was I wrong. It might be 60° later, but the temperature this morning was only 42° when I went to the beach with a wind chill of barely over freezing.

My top half was thinking-- I had a scarf and a sweatshirt with a hood-- but my bottom half wasn't so smart today and I was wearing short leggings and sandals. I actually couldn't feel my toes by the end.

And it was so worth it. What a beautiful sunrise, and practically no one else on the beach.

And I got my first sheriff attention. When I came back to the RV, there was a sheriff part next to it. I just pretended like I didn't even notice, because I know that he was probably just making sure no one was sleeping in there, and I needed to stay confident. After all, I was about to make a whole bunch of turns.

The Driving

Starting out first thing, I got out of my neighborhood just fine. I was at a red light to turn right, but there was no one in sight, so I started pulling out. Naturally a few cars came along at top speed at that moment, so now I've been honked at for the first time in my motoring home. Normally, I am a pretty fast and precise driver with little patience, so now I have to keep telling myself everyone's going to pass me and a lot of people are going to honk at me. Today I was able to get it up to 40 miles an hour, which is almost the speed limit (woot woot). I'm definitely not ready for the highway.

After I left the beach parking lot, I had to find a way to turn around and go the other way on the beach highway. Yikes! (And that's why you take it out early in the morning when very few people are driving around.) I was able to turn around in a parking lot. I only clipped one curb in the parking lot and it was on a left turn. I consider that success.