Driving on the left side

As a newcomer in London, I needed months to adjust to the very many new and unknown things. Driving on the left side was one of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles ahead of me… I needed lessons to overcome my fear and get used to the unknown. Each of those lessons seemed unending, and I felt sorry for my unendingly patient teacher, who stoically put up with the many mistakes I made. Kindly, quietly, he would just whisper a very calm “try again”, “concentrate”, “change sides”. And not one single time did he seem annoyed. As I finished the cycle of lessons, we were both so proud and I felt so accomplished... that’s how meaningful little things can be: someone’s support in the process relearning a daily task can mean the world.

We hugged, and he, otherwise quiet and reserved, told me a little bit of his own story. He, too, had once been a newcomer. He, too, had had his own struggles in a new place.

For a moment, I was fully aware of how connected we can all be on so many levels despite how different our individual lives may seem, and how different, big or small, our individual struggles may be.

As he said to me “you are ready”, I felt he was sending me out to a new world for which I was now a little better prepared, having not just relearned how to drive, but having realized my own connection with a kind stranger.