OF COURSE YOU CAN DO IT.
Dear Ones -
Here's a simple photo with a simple message today.
This picture may not look like anything spectacularly special, but it is to me. This is me, in Australia, in a car. This is me in the car that I have been DRIVING AROUND in Australia all week! In Australia — where they drive on the COMPLETELY OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD from what I am used to.
(Notice, I did not say that they drive on the "wrong side of the road." This is called Cultural Sensitivity. You're welcome, Australia.)
I've been coming to Australia for over 12 years now, because my husband's children live here. And for 12 years, my husband has been driving me around whenever I am here, because he knows how to drive in Australia, and I don't. For 12 years, it never occurred to met that we would do things any differently than that. For 12 years, I've been a passive passenger in this country.
Then, on this trip, for some reason, I was like: ENOUGH.
I'm a grown-ass woman. If I I can drive a car in America, then I can damn well learn to drive a car in Australia on the COMPLETELY OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD.
I knew it would be hard for me, because I'm not the world's most confident driver even in my own country. Spacial orientation is not my jam. I have a shaky sense of direction, and a deep fear of accidents. Also: I knew it would be hard, because my husband would have to be the one to teach me — and if you know anything about husbands and wives, then you know that husbands and wives do not always make the most patient teachers or students of each other.
But here's what motivated me: There are women in Saudi Arabia right now who are risking their safety and their lives, fighting for the right to drive a car...because it's illegal for a Saudi woman to drive a car. Why is it illegal? BECAUSE IT GIVES HER POWER. So if I, who am lucky enough to have liberties in society, choose not to drive a car because I'm a little bit afraid, then that's just lame. Lame and insulting to women who are not allowed to express their power.
We must never stop trying to do things that are tricky and difficult for us — no matter how easy and comfortable it is to relax sometimes into the role of a passive passenger. I learned this from my own mother, who has never stopped learning and trying — who put herself through nursing school in her 20's, who ran a business in her 30's, who got her Bachelor's Degree in her 40's and 50's, who became a world traveler in her 60's, and who now, in her 70's, will ask me questions like, "How can I get these things called Podcasts?" and "Can you show me how to download this thing called WhatsApp?"
It's this same impulse that made me study Portuguese for six months before my husband and I went to Brazil for the first time — because I didn't want to be a helpless passenger, who needed to have everything explained and translated for me. (Did I master Portuguese in six months? Hell no. But I could stumble around a bit on my own power, and that changed everything, and opened up the country to me so much more — in addition to making it easier for my husband's Brazilian relatives to be around me.)
Push yourself, is what I'm saying. Don't just throw up your hands and say, "I can't do that!" or "I'm not good at this!" Push back against the numbing habit of letting other people drive you around or translate for you (whatever that might mean in your own life) because of your perceived helplessness.
It may be easier to be passive, but it ultimately sucks, and makes your life small.
I don't want any of our lives to be so small.
All I want for you, for me, and for all of our sisters is the fullest possible agency over our own lives. Even when it's a bit scary.
Sometimes this means fighting for big things. Sometimes it means fighting for little things — like learning how to drive on the COMPLETELY OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, which I now can totally do.
Not that I'm saying I should win the Congressional Medal of Honor for learning how to operate a car in Australia, but it does mean that an entirely new continent has been opened up for me to explore. And I get to drive the whole way. On my own power.
Which is fucking awesome.
ONWARD,
LG
LG
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