Monthly Musing – September 2024 – New girl

“Hello!  Welcome to our club!”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been the “new girl” at anything, and but here I was at my first session at a Tai Chi class and, staring into the studio which was full of noisy, happy young people just finishing their Kung Fu class which was on before, I was grateful to be greeted at the door.

I’ve been to the class a couple of times now and even though I always seem to be facing in the wrong direction or using the opposite hands during the movements, I am accepted as part of the group and nobody seems to mind.

When I was much younger, I would have minded not getting it right very much.  It would have taken me quite an effort not to back quietly away from the doorway into the busy studio rather than step inside on that first visit, and I would have felt awkward and embarrassed at not being able to get the moves straight away.  I watched both of my girls go through those same emotions as they grew up and we went to various classes over the years, but there came a point when (thankfully), we all found ourselves able to think less about what we might think others were thinking of us and just take part in whatever it was.

Worrying about what other people think is something that can be very difficult to get over, to the extent that it can stops us from even starting things because we are so sure that someone else is watching and judging.  I remember commenting on that to a friend many years ago and they said, “Well, how do you know they’re looking at you unless you’re looking at them?  You just get on with it!”  That made perfect sense to me, and that may well have been the point that I stopped worrying about what other people think!

Not so small daughter and I have been comparing our “new girl” experiences and despite our difference in years, there’s not much difference in our experiences after all.  Not so small daughter has taken up rock climbing and decided to be brave and head to the climbing wall centre herself.  Afterwards, she said, “I don’t know why I was worried; I was always going to find someone to talk to, wasn’t I?”

It seems to me that the hardest part of being the new one at anything is the story that we tell ourselves in our heads before we get there.  I don’t think it matters what it is – a Tai Chi class, a rock climbing wall, a knit n natter group, going to a yarn festival … choosing to do something that interests us will always result in us meeting people with a similar interest so in theory, there’s never anything to worry about.  It’s our fear of the unknown that holds us back, and that’s a shame because there is so much to miss out on.  Nobody ever knows how you’re feeling inside because they only see what you choose to show them on the outside, so these days, I choose to put on my confident “coat” and do what I want to do, and I end up having much more fun – even if I do seem to be going in the opposite direction to everyone else!