“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it."

Throughout my life, I've kinda always known that I have very little sense of direction.  As a child I could almost get away with it, telling people that I was just distracted or deep in thought and that's how I wound up lost...never really volunteering the fact that my deep thoughts were always about where in the world I was and how in the world I got there.  As I've grown older I hear my friends and peers talk about their traumatic childhood experiences, many of them being most impressive.  Although these conversations can be quite intriguing and reflective of each individual...I secretly dread these moments of dialogue because as the time draws closer for me to share my childhood traumas...well, let's just say that mine are difficult to be the runners-up.  

For example, it is rather embarrassing to follow a story of broken bones and blood with, "When I was seven years old, I was at church one time."  *dramatic pause*  "I was in the big sacrament meeting at the beginning of church...and you'll never guess what happened.  I had to use the bathroom.  Right in the middle of the meeting!"  *person listening obviously extremely confused*  "Well that meant that I had to leave the meeting, BY MYSELF, hopefully pick the shortest route to the bathroom in the circular building...and then somehow return myself to the door from whence I had just exited."  By this point in my story, I have pretty much lost my listener to some distraction or to another speaker.  I can't say I blame them though.  The panic induced by needing to use the bathroom during church can understandably be difficult to explain.  I mean, how can one fully understand the trepidation felt at having to count doors as you walk away from your exit, hoping to ensure your safe return to that specific door so that you don’t end up walking through one of the fifty other doors to the chapel, never knowing from where you’ll appear. 

But the trauma didn't end with bathroom runs at church.  It continued, multiplied in fact at school, in the grocery store and at my friends' house.  For being the trusted student in class, what normally would have been an award to any other student was a punishment for me.  "Ashley, will you please take the class roll to the office?"  *cue Ashley's horror stricken face*  "You want me to what?"  

I honestly lost track of how many times my hand became entangled in the odd geometric shapes of the shopping cart at the grocery store, so fearful was I to let go even for a moment, knowing that if I lost my grip on my mother's shopping cart, I'd be doomed to wander forever among the endless aisles of food.  I recall vividly the cage of butterflies being set loose in my stomach whenever my best neighborhood friend would ask me to retrieve something from her bedroom, which she usually asked me to do while we were playing in the backyard.  I'm pretty sure I always took an unplanned detour to her brother's room in the process.  

At the beginning of my sixth grade year I really wondered if my parents had yet discovered their daughter’s struggle with direction.  However, by the end of my sixth grade year, I didn’t exactly wonder about it anymore.  I knew.  Participating in the yearly science competition for my charter school had always been the highlight of the year.  I would study and prepare and experiment for hours and hours for each of my events to ensure I’d be a force to reckon with at the competition.  However, when my mother decided to STRONGLY ENCOURAGE me to sign up for one particular event, things kinda changed.  The event was entitled ROAD SCHOLAR.  Yeah…do you guys kinda see the issue here?  I think my mom had more than a few subtle hints at my lack of abilities when I’d end up my fictional road trip on the total opposite side of the state map I was supposed to be on. 

With each year, ‘though my sense of direction did not exactly improve, I was nevertheless able to find new strategies and ways to circumvent this struggle of mine and even became accustomed to having some type of adventure every time I was set out somewhere I didn’t know how to get to.  However, an entirely new set of problems arose at the age of sixteen.  Dealing with the mixture of dying to drive and drive fast...versus the full awareness that I didn't know how to get anywhere was a rather difficult experience for me.

Driving Instructor:  "Ashley…keep your speed down and turn at the second left."

Me:  "I’m sorry but, do you mean the second stop SIGN left?  Or the second stop LIGHT left?  Or just the second left in general?"

Driving Instructor:  "Just...never mind, I'll point."  

At the age of nineteen there came a time when I was forced to make my first flight to Utah alone.  Excited for the opportunity to be awesomely independent, I figured this trip would be a piece of cake.  After all, all I had to do was find the plane, get on the plane, and let the pilot do the driving for once.  How hard could this be?  Oh how little I knew...  By the time I was finally on my flight I had made great friends with three security personnel.  But I mean, how could we not be friends after having gone through the security routine three times?  Although it appeared that I had not improved much in the way of directions...I did discover that I had a knack for finding the entrance and, immediately following, the exits to the airport.  Luckily I believe my pride and stubborn nature saved me a fourth trip through security, as finally one of the guys running the security scanner asked if he could help me locate my gate.  I promptly told him that I had everything under control and that I just couldn't bear to leave my new-found friends without saying goodbye one more time.  

I am now 21 years old, a senior at BYU and I am proud to say that, although my sense of direction still greatly, greatly lacks...my awareness of when I make a mistake has grown much stronger.  :)  Just two weeks ago, as I worked for the moving company down in San Diego, I was assigned to drive the moving van to the Marine Corps Air Station.  Being once again faced with security, I patiently awaited the approval of my driver's license.  As I got the approving wave to drive on in, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment.  I, Ashley Marie Peterson, had just driven the giant van to this base and proceeded, unobtrusively, through security.  I was on top of the world.  I literally felt like doing a victory dance, which I attempted to do even as I continued driving.  This victory was, as you’d expect, short-lived.  About five minutes later, as my internal compass (which is somewhere deep, deep down inside of me), sent out a warning signal that something just wasn’t right, I glanced at my brother and with an amused tone expressed, “So, uh…I think we just exited the base.” *Wesley starts chuckling* “Seriously?”  “Yup.”  Promptly making a U-turn, we once again found ourselves at security.

The title of this post may be a bit confusing.  After all, how fun can getting lost be?  :)  But honestly, it has indeed become fun for me as well as taught me a lot about life in general.  Oftentimes, we really don’t know how we’re going to get where we want to be.  We have our destination in mind, be it the school office, a plane, a marine base, marriage, a mission, a specific job, an education…but we don’t quite know how we’re going to get there or what may happen along the way.  And that’s where the fun comes in.  The journey is an adventure, full of twists and turns that you could never have expected.  You meet people, make friends…and most importantly, you get to know yourself.  You get to learn how to deal with the unexpected and how to enjoy the random moments.  It can definitely be scary and definitely be hard.  But the more we come to love and learn in this crazy, unpredictable life, the happier, I believe, we will be and all the more rewarding it will be when we reach our destination.