Trust Thy Garmin

Greetings from my mini road trip! I have successfully made it to Chicago where I will begin the apartment hunting process bright and early tomorrow morning. I am staying with a friend who lives in the general area of where I want to live, but my appointment is at an office that is [apparently] at the Heart of Boys Town so I will be hitching a ride in that direction. But, most importantly, tomorrow will be an adventure and it will give me further validation that I'm not afraid of everything. And I won't complain if it also yields a place to live.

Before embarking, my list of concerns far outweighed my list of excitements. (Can "excitements" be used as a noun? I just did it.) To begin with, and I think this is pretty legitimate, I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no qualms with admitting this to anyone; I actually keep mentioning it in hopes that someone will volunteer to do it for me. Right, so I have no idea what I'm doing. My other big concern was that I'd get here, be shown a bunch of apartments, and then not like any of them. I can't really extend my stay in the city past Monday (Tuesday if absolutely necessary) so I've been operating under this idea that if I don't find something tomorrow, then I guess we're not living anywhere. If you're keeping a running tally of my concerns, not actually knowing what I'm doing and assuming I won't find anything are the two at the top. And then there was the driving anxiety, which was just an entirely different bag of tricks. Pretty much every time I've driven to and from Chicago, I have been with my man friend who grew up here. I never have to worry about it because he knows where he's going and he gets really excited when he gets to honk his horn or shake his fist at someone. (That last bit is usually followed by him giggling and saying something like "Did you see what I did?") Not this time! I did the drive all by myself and for whatever reason, my imagination got the best of me (again) and I had visions of single handedly shutting down the Dan Ryan. (I don't even know how one would do that, but I managed it in my head.) THEN, on top of all of this, I was really freaked out about parking. So to recap:

-I'm totally hapless
-I'm going to be homeless
-The state of Illinois is going to revoke my driver's license
-I'm going to abandon my car in the middle of an intersection and run to Friend's place

Well guess what? Everything has been completely fine thus far. In fact, I parked my car smack dab in front of my end destination. In another fact, I PARALLEL parked it, which was easily my biggest victory on the road trip. The drive was, uneventful, save for the warehouse of fireworks somewhere near Valparaiso. And because I drove here from Ann Arbor, I hardly spent any time in Indiana! Hoorah! (Sorry, Indianaians, but driving on 80 for the entire width of Indiana is, frankly, troubling. But I'll do it on the return journey, don't worry.) As much as it pains me to do so, I think I need to give a hearty round of applause the the ancient Garmin that my mom insisted I take with me. Traditionally, I hate technology, even when I'm aware of how much it helps. I have lived a GPS-less life, even printing out MapQuest directions when I would travel for work this past year. I did not want that pushy Garmin woman telling me what to do, especially on the road trip that was meant to solidify my independence. But, because I was vulnerable and spiraling into a descent of anxiety and hypothetical failures, I took the damn thing. And I gotta tell you: total life saver! I had a hard time trusting her at first. She does not like to reveal any of her methods until it is time, and I like to know which steps are coming up when. I eventually accepted that she knew what she was talking about, even when she would say cryptic things like "Drive 90 miles." To where? Then what? And why? But I did what she said and here I am.

After a fairly un-exciting summer, I'm gearing up for an exciting and busy August. Which will be nice, because then I won't have as much time to create fake scenarios in which the Chicago Police are reprimanding me. (I'm not a bad driver by the way, but the mind creates what it wants.)  I'll be working a lot and hopefully all of the apartment stuff will be taken care of. Then I can move forward with furnishing it! With all the money I don't have! Hoorah! Also, my interest/joy/motivation for finding a job has been re-awoken so I'm going to try and get me one of those, I guess.

DON'T WORRY YOU GUYS I'M FINE NOW!!!

Now to find the perfect little kitty for my new life. Don't tell Chester.