RECALCULATING...

Got to love those Global Positioning Satellite devices, GPS for short. They sure know the way, even if you don't. When you make a wrong turn, the soothing female voice reassures you that you won't get hopelessly lost by announcing that she is "recalculating." Sure enough, she instructs you to drive .7 miles and make a left, then a right, then keep right and merge. It's so damned sexy the way she purrs the word "mmhuurge." Before you know it, you're back on track and soon she will be triumphantly suggestively announcing that you are "arriving at your destination, on left!" It's all you can do to control yourself at that point.

The GPS lady is your muse, your secret friend, an unflappably calm presence that makes traveling into unfamiliar territory so much less traumatic. Once you get out of the car, though, there's no one to guide you. All the calculations are your own at that point and you have to deal with other people all by your lonesome. And yourself too. There are no satellite maps to negotiate human hearts, yours or theirs, and no calm instructions coming your way from a sweet disembodied voice advising you how best to proceed.

People are tricky and unpredictable, never quite what they seem to be. Full of surprises, every one of us, and often we even surprise the person we know best, ourselves. You want to deal honestly and civilly with everyone you meet and hope that treatment is returned. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, and some people are hostile, secretive and resentful for no apparent reason. That would be a good time for the GPS lady to pipe up and recalculate things for you, but she's back in the car, recharging her batteries.

And then there's life, Lord help us. Life is messy and full of any number of possible routes to follow, again with no soothing GPS lady to guide you when you make a whole bunch of wrong turns. How do you know they're wrong turns when there's no map or any specific destination and so many damned choices? Simple, you feel lost and out of sorts, and things just feel wrong. You don't need a computer to tell you you're not in Kansas anymore. At this point, it is up to you to recalculate, maybe even take the radical step of stopping to ask directions. What, you're the first one to ever get lost? Hardly.

Only trouble is, the only ones you can ask for directions are other people, and who knows which of them has a clue about this road we're on? Who can we trust? What is the safe way to proceed? Who's got the answers? Why did so-and-so disappear from my life, my trusted rock in a sea of turmoil? That still hurts so much and I'm so afraid! How can I cope on my own? "GPS lady, help me!," you silently scream, but there is no reply, only you and your heart and your brain, left to your own devices in a place you've never been before: this moment. There's nothing you can do about yesterday, and all the other yesterdays when you made so many wrong turns, there is only NOW.

As in "now what?" At this point you've got to realize that you are not really alone. There's almost 7 billion people on this planet taking the same journey as you, so it stands to reason that at least some of them know what's what. And you might know things some of them don't. So you get together with others, compare notes and take that great leap of faith and once again learn to trust another human being, another person who by definition is just as prone to mistakes and poor judgement as yourself.

Pretty scary stuff, but at this point, when you are hopelessly lost, you've pretty much figured out who not to ask for help and who not to trust. And so you open your heart and mind once again, even though you've been burned before. Maybe you've been hurt badly by love gone wrong, or by grievous loss, or by being mistreated by people you thought were on your side. You have built walls around your heart to protect yourself, and figured you'd do better on your own. But that didn't work out at all and now you are lonely, you are isolated, you are sad, and very lost.

You're smart enough now to realize that doesn't make any sense in a world full of people, most of whom are good eggs trying to do their best with this life and their journey through it. So you connect again, share yourself with people, and maybe even fall in love again, that scariest of all unknowns. Will you get burned again, or will you find your way and start taking all the right turns and merging seamlessly into the flow of life's heavy traffic? You'll never know until you open your heart. It dawns on you that there is no half way, it's either wide open or slammed shut. Love is the answer, no matter what the question, and people are our guideposts through this chaotic, messy, difficult, exasperating, challenging and completely wonderful adventure called life. Recalculating...