Having the Prime of My Life

Life is full of wrong turns.

A friend of mine said she’d be so lost if she drove without a GPS. Truth is, so would I. Then again, I manage to get lost even with Chatty Cathy hollering at me to turn left or right and giving me fair warning.

That’s not surprising, as I often become disoriented in a mall. Many times when I come out of a store and think I’m heading toward the end cap, I wind up at the food court instead.

I grab a doughnut and coffee, justified by the additional steps I’ll have to take to walk back to where I wanted to go in the first place, and start the journey over.

When I first learned to drive, many decades ago, road maps were the navigational tool of choice. When I wanted to take a trip, I pulled out my Atlas, wrote down the directions, and headed out. Simple enough, unless you’re directionally challenged.

I cannot distinguish North, South, East, or West when I’m on the road. I suppose I should have installed a huge compass on the dashboard. I’d read the road map only to realize I read it upside down and ended up ten miles north instead of ten miles south.

Today’s handy GPS devices would have recalculated long before I’d gone that far out of my way.

Even though lost or in unfamiliar territory, I eventually managed to get to my final destination. The wonder is, through unplanned detours, I sometimes found little treasures that I would have missed if I’d gone in a straight direction or a programmed route.

Where’s the fun in always knowing where you want to go?

Sometimes I take a purposeful, spur-of-the-moment side trip … not knowing where I’m going or where I’ll end up—and with no GPS or road map. Just trying to remember what turns I took and try to retrace my paths.

Obviously, I’ve always managed to find my way back … unlike Charlie on the MTA, I did return.

On one of those unplanned excursions, I ended up at a huge flear market and bout a picture of a turn of the 19^th century main street, with storefronts, horse-drawn wagons, pedestrians in a white frame. Though I sold it during our last “downsizing”, I vividly remember the painting, much like I imagine any small town in America would have looked back then. I liked to put myself into the town and imagine what my life might have been like in that era. 

Sometimes a wrong turn or an impromptu adventure

can bring unexpected treasures. 

Have you ever taken a wrong turn and wound up in Adventureland? I’d love to hear about it.