Open Mouth. Insert Foot

I was single until 34, and that meant that if I wanted to do life, I needed to accomplish many things on my own. Which I was mostly OK with but sometimes there were the harder things that seemed a little daunting. For instance, traveling alone was a little intimidating the first time. Buying a house, filing my own taxes most years, choosing an insurance company, getting a job, learning how to use Excel, buying cars, lighting the pilot light in the water heater... Things like this.

One of the things I used to say to myself whenever I attempted something big and new was "People a lot dumber than me do this every day. It can't be that bad."
That sort of kept the fear of the unknown and the feeling stupid from tying me up in knots. Especially with buying a house and solo travel.

I later found that it really was a dialogue that should remain an internal one. Thankfully I was among friends (JustPat and the Kevmo) who love me and think my foibles are sometimes quite hilarious when this little pearl of wisdom came crashing out of my mouth. Even if my intentions were to be encouraging, it doesn't come out so well when said like this:
"People a lot dumber than you do this all the time! It can't be that bad!"

I swear, it's amazing I have any friends at all.

** for those of you with an eagle eye you may notice the age changed in the first paragraph from the time this first posted. Duh. I was not 35 when I got married, I was 34. The thing I'm unabashedly rather not so smart about: Math and NUMBERS!!