One of the great lies of modern technology is that we can no longer get lost.
We have GPS.
We have smartphones.
We have interactive maps.
We have little blue dots that tell us exactly where we are.
And yet, over the course of five days at Universal Studios, I was lost so often that I began to suspect my little blue dot was just making things up.
The problem, as it turns out, is that theme parks apparently believe maps should be viewed on screens approximately the size of a saltine cracker.
I used to be the person who got us where we needed to go.
Although directionally challenged, I could read maps. Paper maps. Solid maps where the top was the top and the bottom was the bottom. Maps that did not suddenly rotate because I shifted my weight or turned my body fifteen degrees to the left.
Maps where you could look at the route and say, “I need to turn right here.”
Or, “I better turn left there.”
Not arrows that changed direction on the whim of the gods.
As a single mom, I took my two children on adventures all over the place.
I studied maps before we left home.
I highlighted routes.
I planned for confusing intersections.
I took them to amusement parks, water parks, state parks, and places we had never seen before.
We didn’t get lost.
And perhaps more importantly, we didn’t ask for directions.
I miss that woman.
The woman with the highlighted map.
The woman who trusted herself.
The woman who could look at a route and know where she was going.
Now?
Now I am standing in a theme park holding a saltine cracker with a battery.
Trying to determine whether the tiny arrow is pointing where I need to go or whether it has once again decided that True North is the most important information in my life.
As if I routinely navigate by the stars.
As if Lewis and Clark are waiting on me.
As if anybody other than Eagle Scouts knows where True North is at any given moment.
And because life enjoys piling on, I can’t see worth a damn out of the eye that needs cataract surgery.
A weakness for another day.
If I enlarge the map, I lose where I’m going.
If I shrink the map, I lose where I am.
And somewhere between those two settings lies the exact point where I begin questioning all my life choices.
One afternoon of our Universal adventure, I was happily settled in Celestial Park.
Soft music.
Shade.
Air conditioning.
Comfortable seating with actual backs.
Civilized beverages served in actual glass glasses.
In other words, paradise.
Then came the text.
“Come meet us at Mead Hall.”
Simple enough.
Except Mead Hall was in the Isle of Berk.
But I was not.
And the app, despite being connected to celestial satellites orbiting the earth, seemed unwilling to share that information in a useful manner.
I zoomed.
I swiped.
I rotated.
I squinted.
I tried again.
At one point I was no longer certain whether the map was lost or I was.
Finally, I found an information booth.
And there, like a gift from heaven itself, was a paper map.
A solid map.
A trustworthy map.
A map that stayed still.
Within seconds, I had figured out exactly where I needed to go.
But then something happened that bothered me more than being lost.
I asked anyway.
Not because I didn’t know.
Because I wasn’t sure I trusted myself.
When did that happen?
The employee confirmed what I already thought.
I was right.
Confirmation that I had become the unconfident woman.
Eventually I found the portal to Berk.
I could see the giant tower thing ahead of me.
The roads split left and right.
The app was no help.
The signs were questionable.
My confidence was fading.
I chose a direction.
Then another.
Then another.
At one point I found myself sitting on a rock trying very hard not to cry over a theme park map.
Which is not a sentence I ever expected to write.
About then, Hubby texted.
“Where are you?”
Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting on a rock, would I?
I didn’t send that response.
I told him I was sitting under a sign that said:
LOST ELDER. HAVE PITY.
A few minutes later I finally asked another stranger for help.
Again.
And eventually I made it.
Exhausted.
Frustrated.
Relieved.
And more emotional than the situation probably warranted.
Because the truth is, this wasn’t really about finding Mead Hall.
It wasn’t even about the map.
It was about confidence.
I used to be the person who found the way.
The map reader.
The route planner.
The woman with the highlighted atlas riding shotgun.
Now I’m the person who asks strangers for directions.
And I hate that.
Or maybe I hate what I think it says about me.
Because the truth is, I did find my way.
I found the information booth.
I found the paper map.
I found the right bridge eventually.
I even found Hubby.
Maybe the problem isn’t that I can no longer find my way.
Maybe the problem is that I’ve spent so much of my life believing strength meant never needing help that every request for directions feels like failure.
And maybe, four months shy of seventy, after a year that included cancer, chemo, cataracts, and a Universal Studios app apparently designed by squirrels, that’s a lesson worth learning.
Even if I’d still rather have a paper map.
One story down. Several margaritas to go.
-Pattie
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