Lost and Late

Thanks to my mother, sister and nephew who put up with my "issues"

I sat in the back seat, leaned back, eyes closed. The pose was anything but relaxed. We were somewhere on New York Avenue, having missed the turn onto 295, on our way to the airport. Our flight left in less than two hours.

When we had hit the road from the Delaware shore, I'd asked my sister if she knew how to get back to Reagan/National airport.

"Haven't a clue." was her reply, but she figured we could back track from the directions we'd used to get to Route 50, which seemed logical at the time. We had allowed plenty of time, and traffic was light. Traffic didn't even slow on the Bay Bridge, where the wait could be as long as two hours during high summer.

We had travelled to Bethany Beach for my brother's wedding. My mother, my sister, my nephew and I had been able to stay on for the week, since beach houses can't be rented for just the weekend, and leaving early would have been a waste.

Now, after a week of sun, shelling, playing with the waves, card games, art projects and food, we were headed home.

The car was packed to the gills, suitcases for four, food from our cottage, shells, beach bags supplied to us by the bride and groom, even a bouquet of flowers from the wedding. For a miracle, we had gotten away on schedule after cleaning the fridge, washing the dishes, stripping beds, and making multiple trips through rooms to make sure nothing crucial was left behind.

It helped that we'd been up since 5. My new sister in law likes to watch the sunrise on the beach, so we'd been out early, walking along the beach to sit on their deck, drink coffee, and say our farewells.

But now, we were in Washington, travelling down a street we didn't mean to be on, unsure of what to do next.

I have trouble in these situations. I am anxious about being late, especially when flights are involved, and I am helpless. Because of my vision impairment, I can read neither maps, nor road signs. All of my control buttons, and friends will tell you there are plenty of them, get pushed in these situations.

I did suggest pulling over to think things through, rather than just continuing to drive. I'm sure there was an edge to my voice.

So we turned in at a burger joint and rolled up behind a big station wagon in the drive-through line. It was not fast food. We sat for a few minutes, then, when the tension in the car got pretty high, my sister hopped out and asked the women at the picnic table next to us for directions.

My sister takes time with people. She's kind, friendly, thoughtful, all wonderful things, but in my current state, I just wanted her to be FAST. Although I kept telling myself that it was only a flight, that we would probably make it, that even if we didn't, life wouldn't end, in my tense, roiling gut, I didn't believe a word of it. Watching my sister asking for directions, I could almost hear the easy, relaxed conversation, and my knuckles grew white.

It seemed like hours before she returned to the car. But she had directions, and they turned out to be good ones. However, even after what seemed an eternity of getting the directions and getting back in the car, the station wagon in front of us had not moved.

My nephew Joshua was picking up on the tension, and made some pithy comments about the speed of service, and people blocking our exit. We tried to be soothing and calm, but there was a car behind us now. We were blocked in and our flight left in an hour and 45 minutes, and reassurance rang false to us all.

Finally the car behind us gave up and backed out, and so did we.

Soon we were wheeling down New York Avenue, hitting half a dozen traffic lights just before they went from amber to red. But in the promised three miles, there were signs for 395. We went into a tunnel, good, since we needed to cross the Potomac to get to the airport.

But wait, we were still on the wrong side of the river, having merely gone under a few big office buildings and a sports arena. When we came out, there was no river to our left, there were no signs for 295 and 395, and we were lost again. No burger joints, no passers by. We were in a no man's land of concrete.

Helplessness seemed to have swamped our car. I couldn't read the signs or map. Mom could read the map, but was having trouble translating what she saw on the map to my sister, and my sister was in that state of "just tell me where to go, and I'll go there." It wasn't a good scenario.

Meanwhile, I was sitting in the back seat, thinking that I was going to be physically sick. I could feel bile rising in my throat, fed by unreasonable, illogical fury: at the situation, my sister, my mother, the engineer who designed the complicated DC road system and the jerk of a highway planner who failed to put up big, clear signs to REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT!

My nephew was also getting pretty upset, so I started murmuring "It's going to be fine" lying through my teeth, and repeating myself too often in an effort to calm the waters with the false mantra.

My sister snapped "Josh, it's OK for you to be anxious too."

All the while we were driving, not sure of where we were going, nowhere to pull over.

"Joshua, Call your uncle." My mother said, tension clipping her words.

My nephew Josh did so, but he too had caught the helpless disease.

"What do I say?" he asked.

"Pass the phone to your grandmother." my sister said.

We got my brother's voice mail.

"Call us as soon as you can." Mom said into the phone. We're in DC, and we're lost, and about to miss our flight."

Just then my sister saw a sign for 395 WITH an airport indicator.

"Woo Hoo!" she said, just as the phone rang, my brother calling us back.

"We're fine." Mom said, "Not lost any more."

The rest of the trip went smoothly, but I was tense for the entire drive. All we needed was to miss one turn off, and that Burlington plane would leave without us. Needless to say, our batting average failed to instill confidence.

At the airport, we hugged goodbye, but the tension was still strong enough to make the parting pretty subdued. We weren't on the plane yet.

There was a huge line at the US Air counter. Mom went straight to a ticket kiosk at the front of the line near the first class agent. Until she cut in line, something she would normally never do, I hadn't realized just how tense she was In her anxiety, she printed boarding passes, and didn't print baggage checks. Since we were cutting the line entirely, and needed help, I headed for the back of the line, in case our bad luck held and we got sent there by an officious airline staffer.

Our fortunes had turned though. By the time I had ducked under one cordon, a kindly US Air ticket agent was helping Mom get baggage checks. I ducked back under the cordon, they put baggage tags on our suitcases, and we dropped them for scanning and loading. 40 minutes until our flight boarded, and still TSA to deal with.

When we arrived, there were three or four long lines coming from security, and our hearts sank. but luck was with us again. An official must have seen our traumatized faces, or maybe Mom's advanced years. Anyway, he took a look at our boarding passes, led us under some cordons, through a few lines, right to the fellow who looks at passports. Miraculously, within minutes we were out the other side, putting on shoes, collecting belongings out of plastic bins, walking to our gate.

We had to walk to the far end of the concourse, but we had about half an hour to spare.

Mom pulled out her phone to call my brother, and found a message from my nephew. He and my sister were waiting, parked outside the terminal, to make sure we made our flight.

As our heart rates settled, Mom called Josh to let him know we were OK, and also let my brother know that he wouldn't have to host us for the night.

I could feel the sleepiness that follows great stress, and looked forward to an hour and a half on the plane where, presumably, the pilot would know where he was going, the only things to look at would be magazines and sky, and the biggest decision would be coke, or tomato juice.