Lost in My Hometown

I consider myself reasonably intelligent.  I can usually understand a concept when it is explained to me.  I enjoy puns, double entendres, and other wordplay.  I’ve always been good at crossword puzzles and brain teasers.  I love sudoko and cryptograms.   I can improvise when the need arises, and “think outside the box”.  I have always gotten good grades in school, and while it required study, I generally remember what I’ve learned.  However, I have a brain defect.  I can’t find my way out of a paper bag.  

I have no sense of direction.  One of my favorite things about living in Utah is that the mountains are big enough to be seen from anywhere and provide a frame of reference.  Virtually all of my driving is done along the Wasatch front, and the mountains are always to the East.  With that in mind I can usually head in the right direction.  Not that it helps me find a specific location, but at least I can find my way home.

In addition to having no sense of direction, I have no “direction memory”.  When I got my driver’s license at 16, I had to ask my mom for directions to get to the high school where I had been going for three years.  I’m not kidding.

My husband was in the military and we moved roughly every three years.  This is a real hardship for the directionally challenged.  Every time we moved I would buy a little spiral notebook and label it “How to get to...”.  On each page I would write directions from my house.  I’m talking directions to the dentist, the church, the grocery store, my children’s friends’ houses, the elementary school - no place was so frequently visited that it didn’t require an entry in my notebook.

When GPS devices came out I bought one.  The problem was they weren’t always accurate, especially once I got really close to my destination.  I can get lost in a parking lot.  Literally.  When I was in college I had to do clinical rotations at many different hospitals in the area.  Finding these hospitals was a major stress in my life.  I would look them up on mapquest, plan my route the night before, and head out in the early morning hours.  I would sing “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music to fortify myself.  I would turn on the GPS and put the car in drive.  Eventually the little voice on the GPS would say “approaching destination” or whatever.  This would be no help.  I would look to the left and look to the right and find myself in an office building mega-plex.   I can’t tell you how many times I had to use my cell phone and humiliate myself by calling for directions.  “I’m in the parking lot but I can’t tell where I’m supposed to be”.  

The same thing happens inside buildings.  Hospitals are the worst because hallways don’t have windows so I can’t use the mountains for help.  It’s so embarrassing when you get a call to come to “the North Hall” and you have no idea which way is north.  Repetition is of little help; at least not a reasonable amount of repetition.  After two weeks I could find my way to my office with confidence.  It took over a year to feel comfortable on the main patient floor.  After two years I could find my way to CT and MRI by myself if I had to.  To get to the NICU there were two elevators that faced each other.  I would take whichever one arrived first when I pushed the call button.  No lie, even after two and a half years I wasn’t sure until the doors opened on the fourth floor if the NICU was to the left or the right.  

Fortunately, I didn’t pass this disorder on to my children.  My oldest daughter has an uncanny sense of direction.  True story.  When she was a little girl,  we were living in the midwest and would visit my parents on the east coast two or three times a year.  On one particular trip, as we were driving along the highway, she started whining that she was hungry and wanted to go to McDonald’s.  I told her I understood, but that there were no McDonalds around.  I said, “Look out the window and tell me if you see a McDonald’s.”  She said, “We’re coming up on one.  I remember from last time we came.  You get off at the next exit and turn under the freeway”.  She was right!!  She was four!!  This is a completely amazing to me.  I have no idea how she does it.  

I don’t know how to fix my problem.  I don’t know if other people suffer from the same thing.  I’ve tried to hide my handicap my entire life.  When I need to go to a new place, I see if a friend wants to come, too, and if they want to do the driving.  When I get lost I call my daughter for directions because she is so sweet she doesn’t laugh at me.  At least not to my face.  I make sure I always have a snack in the car incase I need sustenance while I find my way home.  I keep it in a paper bag.  Just don’t expect me to find my way out of it.