Driving

Driving...

I spend more time doing it than I would like.  That's probably because I don't like doing it at all.  And, because it's at least 15 minutes or more to get anywhere I need to go since we live in a rural area.

Today I drove "to town" (25 miles) to go to the dentist.  Just a cleaning.  In and out in under an hour...plus the 50 minutes [total] it took me to get there and back home.

Yesterday I drove to the doctor.  I had to figure out what in the world is this creepin' crud I've had for nearly a month now.  (Seems like it's a combination of sinus infection, allergies, and asthma set off by the other two things.  3 kinds of drugs, and I should be feeling better in a few days!)

I've never really liked to drive, and I have a pretty bad anxiety of driving places I've never driven--even if I've been there before and just haven't' driven it myself.  It's not pretty. 

A couple months ago, I had to drive to the building where our new church will be.  I had been there a few times, but Jeremy had always driven.  (That means, I didn't really pay attention to how we got there.)  It's in a part of town with which I'm unfamiliar.  I had the kids with me, and we were rushing to get there on time too. I called Jeremy a few times on the way there, and had him tell me twice exactly how to get there--including every stop light, turn, landmark, distance, etcetera.  Then I repeated it back to him and he verified that I understood how to get there.  I prayed before we left, and the whole time on the way there.Still, when driving it, I was incredibly uptight, sitting up straighter than any normal human normally would when driving; I was very snippy with the kids and made them sit in complete silence all the way there.  I freaked out part way there, because there was construction along the way.  Then I freaked out once I got through the construction and didn't know where the road I was supposed to turn down was.  I tried calling Jeremy and he didn't answer, so I freaked out some more.  I only exhaled 35 minutes later when I got us there safely.  I apologized to the kids and went inside to the bathroom.  I looked in the mirror and my entire neck and chest was broken out in hives.

Serioulsy ridiculous.

I'm fine going there now, by the way.  Once I do it successfully by myself one time, it's okay.  It's like a major issue I have to conquer each time I go somewhere I haven't driven myself.

I'm not really sure why I have this anxiety, except that maybe it somehow stems from the terrible fact that two of my high school friends were killed in car accidents during the years I was learning to drive.  One was killed by a drunk driver, and the other was a passenger in a car full of students passing a school bus on their way to school one morning.  Both were friends who were part of my daily life at school and in choir, and losing them clearly impacted me emotionally.  Perhaps these accidents have something to do with my driving anxiety.

After I graduated from college, I worked as an admission counselor for the university for two years.  Part of my job was traveling to the territory I was responsible for in northeast Ohio...all places I'd never been, by myself, in a rental car, without the modern frills of Google Maps, GPS, and smartphones.  Looking back, I really don't know how I did it, other than now knowing God had angels literally surrounding me every moment I was driving!  I even enjoyed the traveling!  It was very stressful for me getting to the schools and college fairs, but I loved the time at the events so much, I was able to overlook the amount of stress getting there put on me.  

I will never forget the time I was on my way to visit Bishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio.  I was to be there and set up my Capital table during the lunch time, and I visited some other school in the morning.  I always tried to verify with someone at the previous school what the best way to get to my next school was.  I'd been advised to ask the Athletic Directors at schools, because they have to provide sports teams with directions to schools they compete against and usually know the best way to get to area schools.  Made sense to me.  So, I asked the A.D. at whatever school I was leaving if my directions to Bishop Hoban were the best way to get there.  Oh, no, no, no...that wasn't exactly how I should go.  So, he gave me "better" instructions.  I remember him telling me to take a particular exit off the Interstate, and that I would see "HOBAN" in big letters on a hill off to the left before I'd get to my exit.       

Welllllllllll...somehow I never saw Hoban on the hill, and the exit numbers were higher than they should have been.  So, I decided I needed to get off the Interstate and into Akron somewhere to get directions.  I saw the Main Street exit, and figured there would be a gas station or some kind of patronized establishment on Main Street where I could ask someone how to get to Bishop Hoban High School.  I turn onto Main Street in Akron, Ohio, in the middle of lunchtime on a weekday, and it was literally like a ghost town.  Not a soul to be seen!!!  That freaked me out pretty well.

I did see a police car at the side of the road and noticed there were two policemen sitting in it.  I pulled up behind them, and approached the passenger side from the sidewalk.  The very nice policemen quickly asked me what in the world I was doing alone in that area?!?!  When I explained to them that I was lost and where I needed to go, they told me to get back in my car quickly and follow them "wherever" they went, no matter what!  They (and, consequently, I) seriously drove over sidewalks to get to Bishop Hoban High School, which was, of course, fairly nearby.  They showed me exactly where to park and told me to only leave by a particular route.  Yeah.  Driving over sidewalks in Akron, Ohio...another of my "great" driving memories.

So.

Since switching from an Android phone to an iPhone, the thing I miss the most is the robotic voice GPS lady on my Droid.  The iPhone doesn't have sound with its Google Maps navigation.  I think I need to find a voice app to go with it so I can drive places I've never been without breaking out into hives.