Brain GPS

My job is equal parts teaching and driving.  Of course, I'm completely directionally-challenged, and so to have any chance at all of getting to a school or home to see my students, I invested in a GPS.  Nothing fancy, just something with pictures and a voice (I like mine to speak in a British accent) to get me from "I don't remember a barn on this street" to "Oh, look!  A school!"  When I am lost, GPS helps me find my way.  Simple.

So why doesn't my brain come equipped with one of these handy gadgets?  Oh, sure, there's that whole spatial awareness thing, landmark-recognition and all that.  But what I really need is an "I'm lost and I don't know what to do next" kind of system in my brain.  Something that will tell me how to get from Point A in the City of Overwhelmed to Point B in the Land of Calm.  If it had one of those handy "avoid routes" buttons, I could save myself a lot of time bypassing the I'm-Having-a-Breakdown lane.  

In the last few weeks, I've had dozens of decisions to make.  Not the familiar kinds of decisions that all moms make every day, but new, scary decisions with consequences I can't imagine.  College-payment decisions, job decisions, health care decisions...basically, my mind is on decision-making overload.  When that happens, I have a tendency to overthink everything - especially those things completely unrelated to the real decisions.  Suddenly, choosing between bagels or cereal for breakfast is monumental, mind-numbing, and completely impossible.  I'm stuck.  Lost.

This is where that GPS system would be really great to have around.  Type in the destination ("College Finances") and get specific directions, in a cheery foreign voice, on how to get from here to there.  I could get un-stuck, and I'd know exactly what I needed to do next.  I could go to sleep before 3am, because I wouldn't have to attempt to plan every possible route, figure out how to avoid every potential pothole and roadblock and cliff.  

And if my brain GPS had a "Points of Interest" button, maybe I'd even be able to find out the location of the nearest Margaritaville.