Just keep driving

...but what if I can't?

On Friday night, I drove to another college campus to baby-sit a 2 year old while his parents attended part of the new member's class at my church. And as most of you know, each campus is different and difficult to maneuver for those who do not live there.

My mapquest directions told me to turn onto Such-and-so Ln, and proceed to xxx. I drove where I was told, but all I saw was parking lot, parking lot, building, round-about, and dead ends everywhere. So I drove back around the area three more times convinced that I had missed something. I was on the right street, I was following the directions, what's going on?

I finally called the parents, and was told, "yes, it looks like a dead end, but its not. Just keep driving." "No, seriously," I said, "I can't drive anywhere." She put her husband on the phone and he figured out that I was on the wrong end of campus. That the street names were the same, but I had to drive around and enter from the other side to get to their place.

My meds have been upped once again, and yet there is still no significant improvement. I've been sitting at my computer since 2pm trying to do my work... the only thing that changed is that I don't get up as often because I don't think of random things that I feel I need to do right in that moment for fear of forgetting. But I'm still completely unproductive, and I'm losing my mind. And now that I've been sitting all day and I still have a paper to finish, I'm antsy and I just want to start pacing... anything but sitting.

When I'm trying to do my homework its like I'm driving in circles on the wrong side of campus, and no one really understands why I can't get to the other side... I have NO IDEA how to get there! I don't know WHY I stare at a page and can't even make my eyes read one word... or I read a paragraph and I have ABSOLUTELY no comprehension of what they were trying to say, or I read a bunch of articles and I just CAN'T hold them all in my head in an attempt to synthesize or compare them to one another...

I don't know why I seem to hit all these dead ends and yet everyone else seems to find their destinations just fine.

I'm exhausted and exasperated and utterly overwhelmed... and the clock keeps ticking.


Update at 12pm on 3/26: I finally went to bed at 2:45am (with one paragraph of 4 pages written), knowing that I wasn't getting anywhere. I set my alarm for 6am, hoping to finish the paper in an hour or two, e-mail it (due electronically at 12pm), and then sleep for another couple hours. Well, I didn't get up until 7, and I didn't really start working on the paper until 8, and it wasn't finished until after 11am. So now, I have a day that cannot wait while I sleep. 'Tis my life.