Drop Off

So today was the drop off. I feel very silly for hyping it up in my head as much as I did. All last week I kept coming up with these scenarios, like what if I cross a street and go our of our 16 block area, what if I walk into a place we've never been, or what if I give up. The practice drop off yesterday helped build my confidence. I got completely, 100% lost. I had to try so hard to take what I thought I knew and throw it away. This was one of the first times I did this in such a complete way. Normally if I get lost I know I am somewhere on a particular street. Like the day I got lost on Park because I was sick and couldn't hear anything. Even though I was very disoriented I still knew what part of which street I was on. In our practice drop off I had nothing. I kept finding things, then I'd find a second thing and they didn't agree with each other. As hard as it was I had to force myself to erase them and start over, otherwise I would have driven myself crazy trying to make sense of things that were incorrect.
After yesterday, today was really easy. I got lucky that is for sure. I remembered what we had been taught, find the sidewalk, get to an intersection, and keep moving. I was unsure of my direction because when I got onto the sidewalk I was in the shade. I knew at that point I had to just pick a direction and go. After a few steps I found the sun, which confirmed that I was headed West, several steps later I noticed there were no intersecting driveways or sidewalk, then I reached out and felt the gate to the cemetery and that's when I felt about 99% sure of where I was. I still wanted to be cautious, yesterday I found hand rails and stairs and assumed they were one location when I was very wrong. I didn't want to assume anything completely until I got to Macomb and felt the wall I liked the hit with my cane when going back to Potbelly's. After that I kinda went into auto pilot, I had walked this part of Macomb to Potbelly's several times.
I am really glad I had the crazy lost experience yesterday, and in someways that experience is what I thought my drop off would be like. Now I know I was able to get out of a stressful situation like that. I am proud of all of us, this whole experience has been very rewarding.
Bus travel next week should be fun!