Is This Real Life?

Sometimes I feel like Dorthy, waking up in Oz. 
I expect to wake up from this weird city life, and wake up in rural Pennsylvania. Things sometimes seem weird here.

Yesterday I was at the DMV, updating my license and I skipped a huge line because I made an appointment online. I only spent 10 minutes at the DMV, which is unheard of, and the people I passed coming in were glaring at me as I walked out with my paperwork in hand. 

I was never the super-organized person, the one to have all their ducks in a row and be able to skip past all the other people in line. I would be the person to show up late, and have to fill the documents out there, and return to the back of the line. 

I had about 2 hours to kill, so I enjoyed a almond pretzel from Auntie Anne's and found some flats for $7 in Old Navy. I browsed around Marshalls at all the home decor and planned to return when I could actually spend time looking around. 

In high school I had never even gone to a mall, until my best friend brought me one weekend. It was all too much. Even in college I bought all my clothes at JC Penney and everything else from Walmart. I could never imagine being the type of person to just go shopping, how extravagant. 

I left for work and saw a troupe of 'dancers' the next car over. So, when the train stopped and the made their way to my subway car, I got up and went to their old one. Got a seat, and looked into the car I just left at all the people trying to ignore the blasting music and contorting school-skipping kids. Then a family of tourists asked for directions and after helping them I was profusely thanked. 

When the subway reached my station I was already positioned at door that let the staircase I needed to make a quick exit. Because it feels pretty awesome to walk up a staircase alone in front of the 40 people behind me attempting to squeeze up it all at once.

I am still shocked that I am living in a large city, navigating it and knowing where I am going. Knowing to avoid that block because all those people are just leaning on the buildings. Never will you find a group of 'strangers' casually doing that... unless maybe this is in Midtown, and they are waiting for a ticket line to something open up. Knowing the tricks on the subway to avoid the smelly subway car, the dancing kids and how to make a quick exit to street level, I feel almost like an expert. 

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I never used to feel like an expert. 

I never used to have confidence in my ability to live on my own, let along here. I still often have 'out of body' experiences, where I am running to catch my train and I realize that the old me would've been shocked. How do I even know where I am going? Know not to walk down that block? How did I learn all this? Well, I guess the short answer would be that Tom is a great teacher, but the better answer is that I just never thought to try new things. This real life still surprises me.

I'm sure that this is normal.

When someone becomes a parent I'm sure that they remember back to when they were praying to become pregnant, shell shocked when the child they longed for was placed in their arms. How do they do this, be a parent? Then they suddenly are doing it, and doing it well.

Maybe you were hired at an amazing job and are shocked that your minimal qualifications got you there,. Maybe you think that the suit you borrowed from your roommate is fooling the person hiring you. But then you say something useful during a meeting and everyone looks up, and your realize that you can do this.

Maybe you are like me and moved somewhere very different, the one place you never planned to live and even told others you would never move to.


So tell me...
Something that you are brand new to, that feels overwhelmingly different?
Is there anything that you feel like you've conquered?
Did you ever get flashbacks to how it was?

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Every Friday hundreds join the Five Minute Fridays writing flash mob, 
where bloggers get together to write on a common topic or specific word. No extreme editing; 
no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation. 
Unscripted. Unedited. Real.