Getting Lost

Okay, so I have suffered on countless occasions from my lifelong battle at being directionally challenged. And yet it still frustrates me each time I get lost, or take the long way there (in my case it's usually the extra extra long way).

My natural inclination is to make friends with people at school and I want to be part of a real community of people who are into writing, like me, for the first time ever. But it can be frustrating sometimes. There is nobody in my life that I can have an honest and educated conversation about poetry, with unless I get them drunk first...and even then it's a stretch. So, getting out of class early and being invited to a new friend's b-day party was great. Such a change from last week, when I wanted to cry like a baby everyday because of the demands of four upper division classes and two crazy children at home.

But navigating my way one mile from the student parking lot was too far for me (without the comfort of my navigation system that is in the car I usually drive, but did not drive on this particular day, ugh) to go without just accepting the fact that I probably won't find it. This is called coming to terms with being directionally challenged and obviously I waiver back and forth between denial and acceptance.

I think I made it to the parking structure, though I can't be certain. But I couldn't find my friend who invited me anywhere in sight! I walked around, though not really sure which way to head. I think I even found the right apartment building, again I can't be sure. And I remembered that in all my brilliance I told her I would call her when I got to the parking lot, not realizing that I didn't even have her phone number in my phone! Ahhhhhh! This is the story of my life, I just do these things sometimes that don't make sense and end up making my life more difficult but I can't get mad at anyone but ME because I did this to myself!

So, there I was wandering through the parking structure, aimlessly loitering and feeling weirder each time a guy or group of people would pass me. I was convinced they were looking at me suspiciously, although they probably could have cared less. Here I am in a parking structure I've never been to before, by myself, with NO pepper spray or self-defense techniques to speak of (I can't exactly defend myself with yoga). What was I thinking? (Ok, yes, these were mostly people of my peer group (ok, younger!)) Why was I, a twenty eight year old married mother of two (wow sounds even dorkier when I write it out) intimidated by anything?

Well, it was dark and I became nervous and had an unsettling feeling of complete vulnerability. I like to be in control, so these anxieties and fears multiplied inside me until I had convinced myself that it was hopeless to wait out in the dark (and it was really dark, although barely 7:00) and got back into my car.

I drove around the parking structure again. I drove out and around the front of the apartment building. It was a lost cause. I didn't want to ditch my friend and the party, but I couldn't come up with any other ideas to get ahold of her or find the right apartment, and I didn't even think she had my phone number, so I figured it was a lost cause. So I hit the road and cursed myself for even thinking I could pull it off. I'm a mom, after all. Am I even allowed to have college friends?

And wouldn't you know that my friend would call me the second I enter the freeway and am immersed in what else but rush hour traffic. I was relieved she got ahold of me, I wasn't trying to run away and make her think I really was abducted and raped or something, but felt super lame at not being able to just turn around and still meet up, having literally just reached the point of no return. And so I drove home and replayed my failed attempts to be both friend and mom, because by this time the kids would be nearly asleep when I got home anyways. And I had to finish homework due by midnight. Waste paper and toner printing out assignments then realizing errors and reprinting, then reprinting a third time...