I ♥ my cane

Today after watching Katie navigate Bellamy with little difficulty I was excited for my second try at Rovetta. Since this time I would have my cane I thought for sure it was going to be easier/less scary. I don't think it went badly, but it was more challenging than I had anticipated.
The walls in that building are TERRIBLE for orientation. They twist and turn, just to come back out again, it is so confusing. (Whoever designed that building is a jerk.) I feel like I cannot rely on them to square off or give me a straight path. That's why halfway through my route I realized I walked faster with less anxiety when I did two point touch in the center of the hallway. I have to rely on my own internal compass, and because I have very little practice with doing that, it doesn't work so well. Having that gut instincutal feeling is something new to me. I have always had visual information to confirm my location in space.Without my vision I am begining to learn how to make educated guesses and how to trust my gut feelings. It is also nice to know I have 3 sighted people watching me, so even if my gut feeling is very wrong and I walk toward an open descending staircase, I know they won't let me fall.
I really enjoyed when Katie would take me back to the last point that I was oriented when I got lost. This helped me to fill in the gaps, or break the route into smaller more understandable pieces. I am thinking about too much when walking down the hall. I might not notice the stair case, or the glass panel, but taking the time to point those things out, and doing it multiple times, helped.
Also, I have never loved my cane as much as I did today. Using it in an unfamiliar environment and having to fully rely on it for information and to save me from hitting things, made me learn to trust it a lot more than I did before. I ♥ my cane!