The Stick Shift Surprise…
The other night was pretty fucking amazing. I took the plunge from automatic driving into the manual “stick shift” world. I was actually not expecting to start learning until the summer, however out of the blue, Jules says, “Drive my car around the parking lot.”
This was after a dance class that was my first after having surgery, so I was pretty tired. So, I took the keys and we sat in the car, I got the feel of the different gears with the car off. Trust me, it feels really weird to suddenly have to get used to a new pedal as well as a shifter after driving an automatic for so long. Anyhow, I turned the car on, put it into first, and slowly let my foot off the clutch while giving it a little gas (even though I revved it a little too much at first) and….I didn’t stall!
Now following that first time, I stalled a couple times which is normal because I was nervous. Even when I panicked, my brain knew what to do; I bottomed out more than I stalled. In one night, I went from not ever driving a stick shift, to successfully shifting from 1st to 2nd, parking, downshifting, and reversing.
The knowledge I have been studying for weeks had actually sunk in and I retained it. Even better, I was able to recall specific information while driving the car.Talk about a rush. I was beaming like I had just won the lottery. I applied knowledge and could see physical results in the real world. It wasn’t just books. It. Was. Real. It was proof that I could do this. I AM doing this! If you asked me if I’d ever see myself driving let alone learning how to drive a manual in the past, I never would have believed it.
As they say, the hardest part is starting. Whenever you are learning something or on the fence about a decision, whatever it may be. Yeah, I was nervous. Yes, I wasn’t perfect every time I shifted. But did I give up? Hell no! Sometimes you just gotta trust yourself that you know what to do, even if it’s something you’ve never done before. If Jules hadn’t given me that push to take that leap, I wouldn’t have realized that.Life isn’t easy, just like learning a new skill or career field.
Sometimes, there are days when you feel like you’re gonna stall out. But, when you find the “bite points” in life that give you the momentum to move forward, just like driving a stick, you know it’s worth pursuing.
I know now even more, that this passion I am sharing with my best friend, is what I am meant to do.If I was trying to do this on my own; learning a new career field, driving a stick, studying day in and day out for hours on end, countless overnights, I would have given up. This shit is DIFFICULT. But, seeing my roommate and I, my best friend with the same passion, striving and succeeding by leaps and bounds…it’s an extreme motivator to keep going. I’ve seen progress in myself that I never would have thought was possible.We are both doing what we came here to do.
We are proving everyone wrong that doubted us. Now, we have proof. Nothing is gonna get in our way.
“… He is a doer. And that’s what you need to do. You don’t need to think. You need to drive. You need speed. You need to go out there, and you need to rev your engine. You need to fire it up. You need to grab a hold of that line between speed and chaos, and you need to wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra! And then, when the fear rises up in your belly, you use it. And you know that fear is powerful, because it has been there for billions of years. And it is good. And you use it. And you ride it; you ride it like a skeleton horse through the gates of hell, and then you win…”
-Abridged quote from Talladega Nights
