It’s odd the way one week or even one day can change everything. Just a week ago I was happy with my little 15 year old ‘fanny’ the ford festiva. She worked, yes she was bit rough around the edges and had a slight doggy scent from multiple trips to the beach with sir paddy but it suited me fine.
But insert a mechanic, his so called psychic predictions and a potential future invoice following a routine service and poof, everything changed.
Facing a $2,000 bill for bits and pieces to make her roadworthy again I was faced with a dilemma. When she actually became un-roadworthy is unclear although many friends will claim she’s been that way for a while.
My options were either a) suck it up, trade in fanny and erase my debt free existence by getting a used car loan b) pay the invoice and cross my fingers she didn’t start falling apart in dribs and drabs as the mechanic foresaw in his oil change c) sell her and just borrow mum’s car.
Let’s face it option c) wasn’t really an option. I need my independence so I bit the bullet and went for the car loan so I could get a reliable car so that my main worries would be what to wear on weekends away to Brisbane rather than on the rocking, bucking or knocking of my car or the chance of a tyre blow out en route.
But within two days, the search for a second hand, newishy car somehow took a turn blindly down new car boulevard and I found myself with keys in hand for a car with a genuine new car smell, not one with those fake perfume tree ones.
This well and truly threw me into the good scary vs bad scary territory. Everyone knows this space. The scary zone that forces you to make big changes and take a leap or at the very least a little step of faith.
We’ve all been there. Where something is just out of reach and you can take a leap and do it, or turn down a familiar path and shy away from the challenge. It’s scary, but not in a serial killer type of way and when you finally take that leap, nothing feels better than landing on the other side.
It’s in these choices you find out what you are really made of. Like when one morning you wake up next to a partner of many years and decide being ok, is not enough, you want to be happy every day, or when you’ve taken one too many demeaning insults from a boss or colleague or have been putting off the next adventure because it falls too much into unknown territory. That’s when it’s time for a taste of the good scary.
As I questioned how I even got into spot in the first place it made me think of the last year in general. And while it’s definitely had its low and high points, I’m proud to declare that it seems to have been a year of good scary.
-Moving from London back to Aus after three years away which didn’t include a single visit home – check
- Choosing a job with a new start up business over an established corporation and another business – definitely check on the good scary
- Choosing to flat share with a range of odd, manic depressive, anally retentive and at times psychotic flatmates – a mixture of good and bad scary
- Deciding to chuck it all in for a move to the country – check
- Above all else moving in with the parentals after seven years of freedom – check – and this had the potential to be bad scary, however has turned out to be a good scary in many ways
So with the end of 2011 now in sight, I can look back on the year as one that took a bit of courage, a bit of blind faith with eyes screwed tightly shut and also quite a few deep breaths.
I can’t tell anyone how much I’ve pondered over and over the number of paths I could have, should have and might have taken this year but I’ve decided to put all those ifs and buts in a box and post it to the north pole where it can stay in a deep freeze.
Right now all that matters is I’m where I am and where I’m going. The most I know at this point is my mode of transport is a spiffy white new car with the number plate – SAE.
An acronym for ‘Seek and endure’… perhaps?
Til next time
X
J
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