The Power of Everyday Wins

It’s Summer in Sydney and that means the huntsman is on the prowl again. With all of Sydney to wander and explore, I wondered why on Earth, literally, that it chose to make my car its home.

 As I drove home from dropping my child to school, it waved hello to me on my front windscreen and then scrambled quickly to my driver’s side window for a closer look.

 The old me would have swerved, become hysterical and locked myself in, panic stricken.

The newer, trained in an arachnophobia course, managed to retain sufficient calm to pull over across two lanes of traffic, block a one way side road, leap out of the passenger side door, and hail down the help of a clearly disinterested male.

 I’d like to note that had there been a female, I would have asked the same. But there was none but a suited male who came to my relative distress, surveyed the car and said “it must have gone’. What? In the 30 seconds I stopped for help, my hitchhiking spider decided this one way road was home? The platitudes of ‘It’s probably run off into the grass’ made me feel like a feeble, incapable woman which, I have to admit, at that point, was close to the truth.

 Wanting to ensure my safety and more importantly that of others, I chose not to drive my car home and instead walked. I needed help.

 I turned up at my local mechanics. Yes, boofy blokes covered in grease and surely not afraid of spiders. The first one paled, told me his horror story of one on his leg the other day and shuffled off as quickly as a huntsman. The other came with me, used half a can of fly spray to fumigate my car, then left. I was still not prepared to get back into my car unless I had seen the corpse. I was simply too scared to drive with it as my passenger.

 For an hour I sat at home, wondering how a spider could so disarm me. I felt disempowered, so weak and defeated. Then I felt the rise of frustration, of anger that I was allowing myself to be the victim because of my fear. And that’s when I heard the message in my head “No more!”

 I walked fearlessly back to my car, armed with the remaining half can of spray , a rolled up newspaper and one hell of a “I won’t take this anymore’ attitude. It was the spider or me and I had every intention of winning.

 I threw down my bag, opened every door, sprayed the car like crops and watched for movement. I opened the boot and there was the huge damn thing. With one foul swoop and a war declaration like Braveheart, down came my newspaper, down came the spider.

 I drove off leaving victorious and empowered ! High on success and fly spray, I realised the only thing holding me back against my fears...and life, was myself. No more!  I still don’t like the damn things, but I know I can cope ...and more importantly, win. As mothers we all need moments of winning like that. We all need to feel as if we’re truly being Mothers Moving Forward!