¨The destination is on your right¨, intoned the GPS, as I drove slowly down the empty road. I searched for something resembling a white stucco school, but nothing but miles of cookie-cutter houses marched past, with picket-fence teeth in perfect order.
One year ago, I began working on The Student Stress-Release Workshop, an after-school program which teaches students how to manage stress.
I had planned to meet with a teacher who could help me establish the workshop at a school thirty minutes from my own. Armed with an old GPS and my newly-minted driver’s license, I’d arranged to meet this teacher in her summer-school classroom. This is how I found myself lost in the suburbs, looking for a school in the middle of summer.
I drove down street after street, scanning the roadside for something taller than two stories.
Ding. ¨Recalculating.”
Recalculating? How could I have missed seeing an entire school? Not unlike the outdated GPS, a small, bothersome voice popped up: I’m already so late. This is already going so badly. Maybe this project just wasn’t meant to be.
Frustrated, I pulled up to the sidewalk and rolled down my window. I wasn’t sure where I was or even if there’d still be someone waiting for me when I finally made it to the school. The breeze stirred the tar-baked air around me. It was only after pausing on the roadside (and taking a couple deep breaths) that I realized I’d been driving in the most uncomfortable and ridiculous way: hunched over the wheel with my shoulders hiked up to my ears! I hadn’t realized how anxious I was. And yes, the irony is ridiculous too: I was stressed out over a program that intended to manage stress.
I used to dread the word “recalculating”. It seemed to be the buzzkill of every adventure and road-trip. It meant the road was about to become much longer than I thought -- and knowing my navigational skills, it was probably my own doing.
My trip ended up lasting a lot longer than I expected. But that didn’t mean I was never going to reach my destination. After that pause in the middle of the suburban sea, I drove one more block and (finally!) made it to the school, where I met with the teacher who helped me establish the workshop.
That drive was only the first among many challenges to the stress-release workshop, which, I’m happy to report, is still running. And I’ve come to embrace “recalculating”. I got lost because I was brave enough to meet a new person, in a new place, with a new project. So for me, recalculating is no longer a sign that the road is too long to travel -- but that it’s one worth traveling in the first place.
