Chapter 6: My issues with…directions

I’m terrible with directions. I get my “souths” and “lefts” mixed up.

Then again, I always go the extra mile. Which is what happens when you get lost as easily as I do. Before GPS and other navigational technology, including the nice lady who speaks to me in my car when I plug in an address, I would get so confused that I would shamelessly plead with people, “Please don’t confuse me with words like “north, south, east or west!” Just tell me: do I go right or left?”

I have zero sense of direction. So, the words “north, south, east, west” mean nothing to me. They’re basically gibberish. When I need directions and have to ask someone how to get somewhere, and they are like, “Head east, then go north on the off-ramp,” I just want to scream, “Do I go left or right at that Chinese restaurant?”

For 30 years, I’ve been driving around cringing, with a question mark as my permanent expression whenever I have the thought of driving someplace I’ve never been before. Even if the drive is a mere 10 minutes away.

With my directionally challenged mind, life is a struggle. If I drive on any highway, which I try to avoid like anyone who coughs these days (gah! I have to cross four lanes of traffic at the last minute to make a turn I wasn’t expecting!), all those green signs telling me to get off on the “East Ramp” or “West Ramp” to me read as “Lost” and “Very Lost.”

All this, even after I plug directions into my GPS, and my phone, and Google Maps, and Waze. 

To make matters more embarrassing worse, I’ve lived in the same city all my life. For almost half a fucking century, I lived in Toronto…and giving out directions still confuses me. My heart sinks when people stop me on the street, looking lost. I try to be helpful, I really do. But after the fact, I’m often left wondering what happened to those kind tourists or fellow lost-souls who had the misfortune to ask me for directions before going off on their merry way. 

It haunts me when this happens. I find myself up all night wondering whether they ended up at the ice cream place they were looking for, or if they ended up in Albuquerque. Or, are they still driving based on the directions I gave them three weeks ago? 

And, most importantly, will I ever run into them again, especially because I inadvertently mislead them with my directions?

I started feeling so guilty after giving directions to tourists that I now say, “I’m a tourist too! I’m so sorry — I’m as lost as you are!” Although, candidly, by the look of my confused face upon asking me for directions, these poor souls should have known better.

That being said, I do feel like I should probably send everyone who has asked me for directions, ever, some sort of apology note saying, “I’m sorry I failed you!” But the other part of me prays I’ll never run into anyone I’ve ever given directions to ever again. Which is less embarrassing than admitting my sense of direction is beyond reproach. 

Also, if I ask you, “How far is it to get there?” please answer in minutes, not kilometres, because I don't understand that shit. For example, I’ve only driven to my cottage about 80 times, and yet I will stop at a gas station just to make sure I’m on track. Then I’ll almost immediately forget what the gas station attendant explained to me, so I usually stop at another gas station.

Let’s just say Uber has become a very good friend of mine. I only wish it had existed when I was learning to drive. I seriously wish I had a personal guide, because I trust random strangers more than my GPS. Driving alone is a nightmare.

The GPS lady in my phone steered me wrong a couple of times. Whenever I miss an exit, she tells me to do a U-turn repeatedly, which is impossible on a highway and is exactly why I only trust her 95% of the time. 

And still, no matter how much I sort of trust her, and no matter how close I am to my destination, I still usually leave my house about 45 minutes early because I need to keep some buffer time for when I get lost. And then, on occasion, GPS lady will say, "You have reached your destination,” while I’m looking around thinking, “I think I’m in the vicinity of my destination, but I’m not here!”

Sometimes when I get in my car, I actually greet my GPS (yes, aloud) with, “I’m trusting you. Please don’t make me regret it!”

My nine-year-old son has a way better sense of direction than I do. And you should know, as a driver, I’ve never had a relaxing drive in my life because I’m always scared I’m going to miss my destination. So, nope, my non-relaxing drives have nothing to do with children screaming in the back seat. My son’s actually a great help.

My best friend, who lives six blocks away, always wants me to pick her up when we go out. She’s so good with directions that when she hops into the car, knowing me as well as she does, she acts like Waze and laughs hysterically at my directionally challenged mind. If she ever asked me to read a map, I would have to end our friendship. Because that would just be cruel.

She also laughs at the fact that I can’t even make a chicken, because I’m also as domestically challenged as I am directionally challenged. Still, it seems she’d rather drive with me behind the wheel and take her chances. (On top of my top-notch driving skills, I’m usually distracted, which is probably why I’m so directionally challenged in the first place.) I guess she has a better chance of getting food poisoning than dying as a passenger in my car?

That’s not to say she’s not terrified when I'm behind the wheel, which she should be. There truly are so many distractions, like bikers, bike lanes, pedestrians, and stop signs. So really, my only goal when driving with her, or anyone, is not to hit anything. And to make it from point A to point B. I consider this a success and, actually, a small victory if I arrive without getting lost.

I’ve been in situations where I’ve dropped my friend off and she’s had to explain the way back to my house, which I’ve only lived in for a decade and only driven to a million times and, again, is only six blocks away from her house.

Being directionally challenged is not just limited to driving. A little piece dies inside of me each time I have to park in a large underground parking lot that has many levels and exits. Even if I take a picture indicating that I parked on Level 3, zone B6, I’m always in a state of complete disorientation when it’s time to find my car.

In fact, I got so lost once in an underground parking lot, which had no attendants around — welcome to the modern age, where there are only automatic pay stations and no humans — that I actually ordered an Uber to drive me around the entire parking lot. 

What?! I refused to spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to find my car. (Although, it can be argued that ordering an Uber to find your car is possibly more embarrassing.)

I am completely envious of people blessed with an innate sense of direction, like My Guy, who has somehow not yet learned to stop asking me — me! — “Which way should we turn?”

And I’m thinking, “Well, this sort of feels like the right way, so I’m almost certain we go the other way.” Trust me, if it feels like the right direction to me, I am 100% sure that it is the wrong one. So, sometimes I'll say, “It feels like we should turn left, so definitely turn right!”

This should tell you that, while travelling is super important to me, I am hopeless when it comes to geography. Always have been and always will be. In fact, when I was in high school, I actually got into big trouble for ditching a geography test (likely where this all started). I forged my parents’ signature on a note claiming that it was a Jewish Holiday — there are about a million of them — and that I wouldn’t be able to do the test that day.

Of course, I was caught. My parents didn't care that I couldn’t retain all those geography lessons (and this was way before I could use Google as a reference), but they did care that I forged their signature. Oops.

In any case, please never ask me for directions. Because something like, “Go weast!” will probably come out of my mouth.