I had work yesterday and due to awful weather conditions and road incidents, my usual road home (a major dual carriageway) was closed temporarily. This meant I had to either join a large traffic queue (with a minor diversion), or follow a different route.

I’m very anxious when it comes to driving, I won’t go new places unless someone is with me telling me where to go. When driving, I tend to overthink a lot, and I stick to routes I know despite passing 9 months ago.

Well, I phoned my Mum crying and asked her what to do, and she said just to wait in the queue if I was worried. Google maps was open, so I looked at the map, and found a different route that could get me home. After a lot of convincing myself, sipping water, and wiping my eyes, I just decided to do it. If I had to do a minor diversion anyway, why not just make it a full one??

To my surprise, the drive went ok. I stopped feeling nervous a few minutes into it once I started focusing on listening to the sat nav and reading road signs and markings. I was surprised at how much I’d been overthinking the whole process.

When I got home the nerves finally hit and I realised what I’d done. I’d made it home following a new route on my own. Even with weird road layouts and strange designs. Of course, I panicked at some parts, but I let myself slow down slightly and watch what everyone else was doing. That helped a lot.

I guess I’m just sharing this to tell people that it is possible. Even if you think it’s not. Maybe the situation of me HAVING to go a new way in order to get home made it more bearable. If you’d told me that morning that I would be going somewhere unfamiliar all by myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I did it.

Everything people had been telling me finally made sense. Like advice about just using a roundabout if you go the wrong way, and not to overthink anything. And to watch what people around you are doing.

I’m very happy that I managed to navigate the situation. It made me feel more confident, and I now am looking forward to driving to new places. Nothing will ever be a perfect drive, something could change or I could get lost, but that’s all part of driving.

My advice for anyone in this scenario is to look up where you want to go on google maps beforehand to get a rough idea of lanes to be in and the route. Then just take it as it comes and do the best you can. Apply your knowledge. And don’t worry about mistakes - remember how many people you see making them everyday. Just use your best judgement. And it’s better to get lost than to purposefully put yourself in danger by doing something unexpected to carry on the ‘correct’ route. Just keep the sat nav on and it should reroute you automatically.

I hope this post helps someone