directions

“You’ve arrived
It’s easy to fall in love with the GPS version of the universe.

There, just ahead, after that curve. Drive a little further, your destination is almost here.
Done. You’ve arrived.

Of course, that’s not how it works. Not our careers, not our relationships, not our lives.

You’ve always arrived. You’ve never arrived.

Wherever you go, there you are. You’re never going to arrive because you’re already there.

There’s no division between the painful going and the joyous arriving. If we let it, the going can be the joyful part.

It turns out that arrival isn’t the point, it can’t be—because we spend all our time on the journey.”
~ Seth Godin

Oh, brother Seth, where do I begin?

Did you write this just for me? Did a little birdy whisper to you how much I suck at the journey part of life?
Or was it the screaming, hair pulling, and the skywriting that said YOU SUCK JOURNEY! GIMME THE FUCKING DESTINATION ALREADY! —that gave me away?

It’s not that I haven’t improved—I have.
And it’s not that I haven’t reached some amazing destinations in my life—I’ve done that too.

But oh, mah, gawd, does it have to be such a slog?

Listen, it’s just that as zen as I try to be, as chill and non-attached as my facade makes me out to be, there is always an epic interior battle raging. A churning. A yearning. It’s the fucking Game of Thrones inside of me. And as hard as I try to quell it (and just to be clear, trying hard doesn’t stop a raging battle, trying hard are the foot soldiers, the ground troops) it looms ever larger in my brain.

And that’s the rub I think you guys. All of that striving and “are we there yet?” is in. My. Head. Not my heart. Not my kishkes, and definitely nowhere near where my intuition hangs out. It all goes off the rails when my head grabs the map away from my intuition and starts to second-guess everything.

“Do you think you should have turned left there?”

“Make a u-turn! NOW! I don’t care of it’s legal or not!”

“Oh, what a dumb move! Fine. Let me try and recalculate the route—but I have a feeling you’re wicked screwed.”

All of the second-guessing. Don’t you guys hate the second-guessing? God! I have been known to yell out loud to that wise guy second-guesser “Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say! Where were you when I was deciding what to do?”

Can you even have buyers remorse with regard to your ex? No? Then shut up!

And I have to report that THIS was a bit of a turning point for me. I set boundaries with the all of the mean voices inside my head who were making the journey a living hell. I told them that unless they had anything helpful, encouraging, or constructive to say—I didn’t want to hear it. Currently, my interior dialogue goes something like this:

“That was dumb…”
DON”T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!

“Are you sure you want to do that…?”
STICK A SOCK IN IT!

“They don’t seem interested in your…
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

“Huh, I would have done it differently…”
STOP TALKING. NOW!

See how that works? It’s self-care Tourettes.

Maybe you’re better at this than I am. Maybe you peacefully traverse your life like a passenger—holding a glass of champagne in first-class on British Airways. But I’m guessing you’re not because you’re here—you live on Earth so… I can’t guarantee it will work 100% of the time, and I have to admit that it gets exhausting, but it does help keep the clown car quiet. And that my friends is a definite improvement!

Carry on,
xox

I road-tripped to San Diego this past weekend to partake of some friends, food, and fun.

It culminated on Sunday with a talk by the sublime Liz Gilbert. If you follow me at all on social media you probably have a little vomit in your mouth by now—due to my Liz addiction/affection. Too bad.

But this is not another gushy story about my Liz obsession, this is a cautionary tale about following directions.

I set off, like I always do, with the directions to my friend Sandra’s San Diego home programmed into Google maps on my iPhone, where thankfully, the voice of my imaginary wingman (or woman in this case), would guide my every turn.
Easy-Peasy-Parchesi!

May I just take a moment here to marvel with genuine wonder at the fact that I was able to get myself ANYWHERE on time and in one piece for forty-plus years without my iPhone?

My sense of direction sucks so bad that when I walk out of a door in a foreign city, (or five blocks from home), with my big, smug smile and huge sense of conviction,(always with the conviction, wtf?) and start walking to the right—my husband walks left.

He knows I will either turn around and follow him (on the correct path) or meet him at our destination…eventually.

Anyhow, most days I am the GPS ladies problem. For the remainder of this story, we shall refer to her as That Fucking Bitch or TFB.

Thing started off rather well—I immediately turned right instead of left and without a moment’s hesitation and a minimum of attitude, she course corrected.

Once I was on the freeway that she recommended, (which I just want to mention right now, to get it off my chest, was the wrong choice—just sayin’), I put in my earphones to catch-up on some podcasts.

“Stay to the left for the next forty-seven miles” she advised.

Fine, I thought, settling in for my two hour and fifteen-minute drive.

Thirty minutes later I was stuck in a gridlock so profound that the needle didn’t even register speed—because the cars were not moving! When they did it was at a bracing top speed of 20 mph.

You do the math.
I was going to arrive in San Diego in time to hear my beloved Liz thank everyone for coming—and then have to get back in the car and drive home.

“Road work ahead.” she cautioned, interrupting my podcast, more than an hour after the fact.
TFB was not on her game.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” I screamed back.

“Take exit 45B toward the detour.” she sounded smug.

“Ya think?! I told you this was the wrong freeway! I tried to take the 405! But NOOOOOOOO, Take the 5 she says!! Oh! TFB knows best!”

TFB wasn’t having it.

“Take exit 45B toward the detour” she reiterated with attitude this time.

I looked at the map, it read up at the top: Exit 45B in 90 feet. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me!”

I was locked in the far left lane just as TFB had advised me to do, and there was no humanly way possible way to get to my salvation—exit 45B and the detour.

“You bitch! You piece of shit, good for nothing GPS!” I ranted over and over, “You made me miss that detour on purpose!”

Let’s suffice it to say that TFB did not like my tone.

After I found my way out of the traffic, back onto the open road, I finally gathered some speed and momentum and I actually became hopeful of reaching San Diego before Liz Gilbert died of old age.

TFB paid me back by giving me the silent treatment which caused me to miss two freeway transitions and the exit for gas.

“Keep right and transition onto the 805 south”, she directed, as it whizzed by in my peripheral vision from the far left lane.

“Oh, I’m sorry, too late?” she didn’t actually say that—but I still heard it.

I turned off my podcasts. This was war.

I looked at the map and could see that the exit to my friend’s house was coming up. Exit 71A.

We were entering the third hour of our little excursion as I moved over to the right lanes to get into position.

“Keep left”, she said, as if nothing had ever happened.

“Um, no. You FB I have to exit at 71A in two and a half miles” I replied with all the conviction I could muster. I wasn’t going to let her rattle me. I tried to turn her off, but I couldn’t see the tiny “stop” button at 65, 75, 80 miles an hour.

“I said, keep left for thirty miles” I could hear the wicked smile on her lips.

My exit was imminent. 100 feet away.

Then it dawned on me—TFB was taking me to Mexico where I would die a horrible death at the hands of the some drug cartel kingpin: Chapo somebody, and TFB would be sold for parts.

The moral of this story? Gosh, there are so many!

Don’t lose yourself in podcasts when you should be paying attention. You’re not on a train.

Be discerning. Know where you’re headed. Look at the traffic site. Ask questions.

Always drive the speed limit. (I put that in here in case any law enforcement are reading this).

Sometimes devices are wrong. That’s crazy, I know! But they’re not infallible.

Shhhhhh…Don’t piss off your GPS—it could cost you your life.

Carry on,
xox