No More Driving In Circles!

So I finally caved. I bought a GPS for my car (if it were a newer car it would have just come with one and would have saved me the protracted internal debate). I don't like gadgets. I believe a lot of technology actually complicates life rather than simplifying it, as claimed. However, I have overcome my substantial resistance to both acquiring more possessions and technology and now own a GPS.

Moving across the country by myself (well with a little cat wrangling help from my friend Coyote) was HARD. Really HARD. And scary. I moved halfway around the world at eighteen and don't remember it being half this hard (I guess it gets harder the more settled you become...)

But a part of it is the driving. I didn't drive when I moved to a new country at eighteen. I barely drove in DC last summer and when I did, at least to start, I was never alone.

Driving alone in a new place means getting lost. It means getting lost A LOT for me. And that is scary and unpleasant, and there isn't necessarily someone to ask directions from in a rural area.

Hence the GPS. It is part of my attempt to make my life easier, to prevent those moments when I come unglued (though I am beginning to realize that mostly that has to do with how tired I am rather than the seriousness of the particular catastrophe at hand).

I realized that being lost can result in profound social impairment after reading this post-- "GPS Directed Socially Engaged States." Just the title made me laugh. It is from the blog of a therapist in Seattle who generally blogs about things related to trauma therapy and whose husband is an avid birder and professional photographer. She wrote this post in the context of a car trip she and her husband took to Big Sur (condor territory) after the UCLA trauma conference in early March. It's highly recommended reading, hey, it helped convince me to get a GPS:)

(And for those of you looking for interesting blogs-- check out her blog 'Trauma & Attachment Therapy'-- it's a favorite of mine along with The Homeless Parrot and in a way not so different, both blogs are written about work in a particular profession, and both deal with trauma just in different contexts).