We were in the car in the same location for at least five minutes. I was on the verge of gesturing my friend, Lukas, to get out and direct me, and I played scenarios in my head about how much other drivers were judging me.

Here I was close to an intersection of Caroline and Thames Street in Southeast Baltimore, trying to do the driving skill that prospective drivers in Maryland fear the most: parallel parking.

It was my fifth attempt, and there was just enough space for my 2008 Acura MDX to fit. Twice, I parked too far from the curb and turned the wheel too early. Another time I hit the curb rather aggressively, probably part of the reason one of my tires went flat the other day.

But I kept trying to parallel park into the space until I was successful on approximately the tenth attempt. It was a Saturday night and a friend and I were hanging out in Fells Point. I learned my lesson about being a courteous driver while attempting to parallel park: there have been far too many occasions, attempting to park in a crowded area, where I just stopped trying to park because there were cars behind me and I was holding up traffic. I would make three right turns to allow the traffic behind me to pass, where I would realize, to my horror, that someone driving behind me had parallel parked in the spot I so coveted.

I'm allowing myself to be a bit vulnerable here: that one occasion trying to park on Caroline and Thame Street was one of many parallel parking nightmares in my time at Baltimore. Although I passed the parallel parking portion of my road test several years ago, there was no car behind me when I did attempt, which frankly just made the attempt really easy.

But in Baltimore, parallel parking is its own unique beast. If you don't parallel park on the street, you can find yourself having to drive down ten or so blocks to find an open spot in a residential area, or fork over a hard-earned $10 or $20 to a parking garage.

At the core of my difficulties parallel parking in Baltimore has been the poor knowledge of my car's dimensions and poor spatial awareness. An outside observer in my friend simply told me that my car just couldn't reasonably fit into some spaces. My car is an SUV and the past times I parallel parked outside of Baltimore was in a sedan, so at the heart of my problems was, well, me being a dumbass. I could have saved the damage to my bumper and to the front and back bumpers of some other cars had I simply not tried to engage in the first place.

I know that other cars have tapped me while trying to leave their spaces, too, but that issue has largely been my own fault: at times I will leave inches between my front bumper and their rear bumper while parking. I wouldn't be surprised if someone has filmed me trying to parallel park and put in on YouTube as "Worst Parallel Parking Fail EVER." In December, The Onionpublished an article headlined "Man Parallel Parking Tries To Leave Enough Room Between Cars To Infuriate Other Drivers Into Just Giving Up," not knowing they were reporting on my efforts at parallel parking six months later. It's okay for me as a Christian to be this bad at parallel parking: there is no biblical evidence that Jesus knew how to parallel park, after all.

Gradually, with the help of my friends, co-workers, and simply more experience, I have significantly improved my parallel parking skills. I know which spots I can actually fit into, as well as which spots I can't, with adequate and improving spatial awareness of my car's dimensions aiding in those battles.

Existentially, parallel parking in Baltimore seems like the SparkNotes version of the serenity prayer, at least in my experience:

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

It is quite the stretch, but perhaps parallel parking is largely an allegory for life. Parallel parking, as an art, is an act of timing and adapting. The job transition or life-altering decision you clearly need to make may be represented by when it's time to cut the wheel or straighten out. Getting into the spot you need represents accomplishing a life goal or fulfilling life's purpose.

Cut too early and you won't fit into space and hit the car in front of you with your front bumper. Cut too late, and then both physically and metaphorically, you'll hit the curb. Cutting too early or late ensure that you won't fit into the spot, but adapting is equally as important. None of us parallel park perfectly most of the time, and there are ways we have to adapt fitting into a spot based on our circumstances.

The truth is that if you're anything like me, you'll still struggle for a while with parallel parking. Perhaps we always will. I will admit that as a driver, and as a human being, parallel parking is, at times, one of the most humbling things I'll do. It has taught me failure, as well as resilience despite failure. Even if it's one of the more trivial and humorous things I'll do on the day, parallel parking also gives the stark reminder that I need to ask for help when I'm not good at something and need to get better.

Pressing forward in my life post-college and transitioning to being a teacher and mentor in Baltimore City, I'll always look back on my time parallel parking as one of the first trying things I had to do when I came to the city. The lessons for improving as a parallel parker to keep trying, not give up, and ask for help, are lessons universal to any craft, especially teaching.