I Am Just, Scared.

I took the wrong turning on my way home after dropping Michelle off her home. Twice.

It happens to me all the time. These are supposed to be the familiar roads that I am travelling  at least on weekly basis. However as I approach the junction, I always find myself unsure, which junction take? Which direction to turn? Day time will not be much a problem but when it is dark and the lights on the road are scarce, my confidence dims, too. Even in Seremban if I have not been driving on a route for a few weeks or even a several days, I am not so sure on which way should I go when I am at the junctions. I am totally fine as a passanger if I pay enough attention but when I am behind the wheels, I totally lose confidence.

But I am much better when I am in my hometown. I guess it will have to take me about 2 decades to be familiar enough with the place to be a normal driver with normal sense of direction.

Or is it the problem of confidence?

Taking the wrong way on a familiar road is like losing marks on an exam question which you have practised for a thousand times and are supposed to get a perfect score on it. It is frustrating.

I suppose I am just being me all over again, hating myself for not being good enough, for not living up to the expectations of the others, and myself. I want to be good in everything, I know that doesn't happen, but I am still trying hard to be good in almost everything. When I don't, I lose confidence, and I hate myself.

I have always wanted, and have always been working on, to be perfect. Or close to perfection. 

And I am scared. I can feel the muscles of my hands tense up holding on the steering wheel when I realised I should have turned the other way instead of the one I took. Oh yes I am still on the familiar roads but it scares me, a lot, at night, when it is dark.

All this while I am putting in all effort to be independent and tough like a big girl in this big, big world. I thought I am. I have always thought that I am strong and brave, an adult, capable of taking good care of myself.

But tonight, like all the nights when I went the wrong way, or worse, lost my way, whether or not it was a familiar area, I am the little girl again, nervous and scared, even though I am still as calm as a summer sea on the outside. At times I wonder do I grow up to be a lady I am supposed to be, or I am stuck as the little girl who is scared of anything and everything, and the only thing she has learnt throughout all these years was to conceal it well.

I wish papa is always here to get me through like he did each and every time I am scared when I was young, and mummy, too, but even a princess has to grow up and find her place and grace on her own.

She knows. She knows it well. But when it is all dark she hopes she does not have to take the journey alone.