I ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING TODAY.

And that something is not getting lost.

I know it’s not a big deal – everyone gets lost, but I was born with a broken sense of navigation. For your own safety, never listen to my directions in a car. I can’t go off of addresses and I can only remember landmarks. I say to turn right when it’s actually left, and to go this way when it’s actually that.

This comes in trouble when I’m driving somewhere on my own. I was driving to Delta, one hundred miles away from my hometown. This is the furthest I’ve ever been flying solo. I convinced myself and everyone that I remembered the way. Yea yea yea, go past this, turn here and there, and you’ll know you’re in the right spot when you wind up in the middle of the desert.

“Okay, but don’t get lost, there’s bad cell phone service out here,” Dale reminds me one last time before I head between the mountainous region that Verizon doesn’t cover.

“l’ll be fine. You might get call from me saying that there is sagebrush on one side and a dirt road on the other, and wait, where am I again?” The silence on the other end let me know how well received that stab at a joke went. “No really. I’ll survive.”

I thought of the emergency 72 hour kit I had in the trunk of my car. I thought of the fact that I’d forgotten my pillow. MY PILLOW. Also known as my security blanket, and I had this crazy urge to turn back for it although I was already seventy miles into the trip.

I also thought of the fact that I’d forgotten a jacket. Anyone that lives in the desert knows that the difference in temperatures here is as different as night and day. But I was optimistic. It can’t be that hard to remember the way to somewhere I’d previously been right?

Thinks the girl that gets lost going to her own sister’s house.

I tried to remember the names of bordering towns, in case I needed a landmark to pinpoint my geographical location. What’s the name of that one town?

Fruit oriented. . .Lemon-something?

Lemon Drop?

Key Lime Pie?

Oh yea, Leamington.

Close enough, right?

The lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie, SafetySuit and many other of my favorite musicians serenaded me towards my destination. I tend to live in the moment, which means I tend to listen to music that applies to what I’m going through. And sure enough, right when I thought I’d taken a wrong turn, I hear the Fray softly singing “Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me”.

Thankfully nobody had to find me. I found my own way, and for that I’m dang proud. Now if I could just find a Two Jacks Pizza here we’d be set, but that might be asking for a bit much. For now I’ll settle with a McDonald’s sausage biscuit and a big cold cup of Mountain Dew.