How's Your Sense of Direction?

I have a great sense of direction.

Seriously. That's not bragging, it's the truth. I'm the person you ask for directions, the one who helps when people get lost, the one who can always find their way home.

In fact, the first time I was in CA, I was in a car with some friends - they had picked me up at the airport, and we drove into San Franciso to pick up another, and then we were driving to a house that we'd rented for a few days. (This was in the early days of the internet, when flying across the country to meet people you'd only met online basically assured that you were flying to meet a hairy 15 year old axe murderer.)

We got lost. I got us out of there - me. The only one in the car who didn't live in California.

Don't ask my husband to give you directions - people end up in the wrong city when he does so. We all have our strengths - the man can fix anything in the entire world that breaks, no matter if he's never ever done tht kind of work. It's more than slightly maddening, but at least I can tell people how to find places. My directions might be along the lines of, "Turn right at the 7-11, and then go down to the house with the yellow door" - but I can get you there. I'm also really really good at finding my way around my own town, and the neighboring cities.

I never get lost.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my daughters had an event and I needed to pick her up at 10 p.m.  downtown. It was in an area with which I am familiar and I left my house in plenty of time. It was an easy 20 minute ride and I brought a book, thinking I'd be early enough to sit and read for a minute. 

And I GOT LOST. Completely and totally, 100% lost. So lost that I started to be afraid. Which was totally ridiculous.

It started when I drove to the other city on auto pilot and passed the road upon which I needed to turn - and didn't realize it until several streets later - and when I did, the cut through I thought was there had been closed for road construction and there was a detour. I followed that detour, but it lead to a residential area - one that is pretty expensive - and had NO streetlights OR street signs.

And I kept circling around, knowing that *surely* one of those roads would lead to a road I knew - but it didnt, and I became more and more disoriented. I looked online on my phone, but the theater had no street address (??) and I had no idea where I was. I entered the name of the building into my GPS, but with no street name it wasn't found.

It was so ridiculous and so frustrating that I started to cry. Not because I was afraid, or lost, but just because I was so incredibly frustrated. Have you ever been that upset with yourself? I kept driving, and calling my daughter, whose friend must have thought I was the *biggest* idiot - who gets lost in this tiny city? Finally, I gave up, and we agreed to meet at a different location.

So instead of being 15 minutes early, I ended up meeting my daughter at a McDonalds almost 20 minutes late. I felt like a drug dealer pulling in to a fast food parking lot at almost 10:30, peering into cars, looking for my kid - and profuse apologies and sincere, although ridiculous, explanations, later - we were on our way -

and I still have no idea how I became so lost.

I think I'm being given a lot of opportunities to learn humility lately. I just wish that one of them would stick so I could stop going through these situations. I'm getting tired of them.

Today, I was in that same city, and I purposely got lost, trying to find my way to that theater, just so that never happens again.

Comments

[Joless]

My sense of direction is great when I'm walking and dreadful when I'm driving. I once got so lost trying to escape from the Bradford ring road that I ended up in tears on the phone to my GF who had to leave the pub she was in with a friend, go to her car and get a map and talk me out of it. This was the days before smart phones or GPS. I was so overwrought and upset.

Around my own city I am pretty good at finding a route but it's not always the quickest or most direct.

[addy]

If I have a car with a compass in it - I'm Good! If not - well I could be driving around in a circle for hours. Been there, done that. And the crying in frustration thing - happens at those such moments here too.

[Megan]

I have a dreadful sense of direction. If my intuition tells me to go one way, I almost always should have gone the other way.

I got horribly lost in northern VA once when I missed my turn and kept going — and there was no place to turn around. No place at all. I ended up on a limited access road where the few breaks in the median had signs that said no u-turns. I followed that road to another city, one with lots of one-way streets and no possible ways to make a u-turn, and finally followed some signs for the interstate. I got back an hour and a half later than I should have. Thankfully nobody was expecting me, because I was embarrassed.

Poor street lighting and a lack of visible street signs and house numbers are some of my biggest pet peeves.

[Gwen @SimplyHealthyFamily]

Great story. Something very similar happened to me in a neighboring city were I grew up. The sheer and overwhelming frustration of that day came whooshing back to me as I read your story. I remember at one point thinking that someone was surely changing the street signs on me like in a bad Twilight Zone episode because surely I couldn't be lost in the middle of the day on my own accord. ;)

Love your writing, glad I found your site :)

[Katherine Ormson]

Terrible sense of direction. Worst experience was getting lost in Stockholm, Sweden about 5 days after moving there. No GPS, map or much knoweldge of Swedish beyond hello and thank you. I was very scared (even though there probably wasn't much need to be such). I finally got ahold of my husband on the phone, but had no way to tell him where I was so that he could help me get back to the hotel - yikes!! Thankfully a nice boy at the 7-11 - who had a GREAT sense of direction and a desire to practice his English - helped me make a little map to get me out of my troubles. I will always remember Anders kindness!

[jenn]

i moved to a new city to start a new job when i was fresh from college. i parked in the lot i was supposed to (or so i thought. turns out there was a second parking lot with a similar name) and walked towards work. and walked. and walked. and walked some more. my cell phone battery was dead, and i didn't know my way around the city at all. finally, 3 hours later, i stumbled on the building i was looking for. turns out, i'd parked in the ghetto and walked down the street with the highest crime rate in the city, alone and carrying an expensive looking purse and wearing a brand new suit. i was soooo lucky nothing happened to me that day aside from blisters on my feet.

[Sonja]

My husband is fond of saying that I could be blindfolded, driven to the middle of a corn field and could find my way home. I, too, have an amazing sense of direction. Until I don't. This past summer I was in Colorado with my daughter. We went to Boulder for dinner. When we left, it was dark so I couldn't tell in which direction the mountains lay. That totally screwed up all sense of direction and I got completely lost. We were driving down the streets, in a convertible, with me swearing like a sailor - that is how irrational I get when I do get lost. So I totally relate to your frustration!!'
Hubby, on the other hand, still asks directions to the kids' school, to which one of them has been going for three years. Cracks me up.

[Pam]

I giggled at your post! I am part homing pigeon, and almost (note the use of ALMOST) never get lost. I get very perturbed until I am back on track. I'm glad it all worked out for you!