What the Fran

Things I can do that once felt impossible

Spell 'Wednesday'. I have a distinct memory of school, visiting our teacher for the next year, who told us her outgoing class could spell Wednesday. "I will never be able to spell Wednesday," six-year-old me thought.

Drive. My anxious ass hated learning to drive, failed my first test, and for the first ten years of driving had recurring nightmares I couldn't reach the brake and crashed. I still take it as a serious responsibility but it becomes a largely mechanical process. And the worst is that I backed into a post on my drive, once.

Rubiks cubes. It's the sort of thing one looks at, like maths, and says, "Okay, but not for the likes of my dumb ass." And then it turns out it's just patterns and algorithms and practice.

Name (some) constellations. And I'm getting better. But the first time I looked up and just knew, felt so great.

Read books in another language. Do I understand it all? No. Do I understand and fully absorb every word of a book written in English either? No.

Write every day. I had a five month streak once. Now it's been five years.

Say smart things. I was looking at art and a friend made a comment and without even really thinking, just very offhand autopilot, I replied with something insightful building on their observation that wouldn't make sense without a lot of context but I promise you was pretty bloody profound. Then turned around, amazed at myself. Where the flip did that come from? How did I know that?

Get out of bed. Sometimes I think about when getting out of bed, or in the shower, or leaving the house, felt impossible. And look at me now, doing all those things every day.