Wrong Turn Turns Out

Yesterday, I was on my way to Fashion Valley to meet up with a couple of friends at the California Pizza Kitchen. Indeed not every San Diegan was on their way to Fashion Valley, but a good number of them were, so the traffic getting into the mall was fierce, the congestion oppressive.

I was turning left into the mall and had made a strategic error, putting me in the "right-left-turn" lane instead of the "left-left-turn" lane. As I sat there at the light, I contemplated my utter lameness and clutched the wheel tightly, berating myself for doing what no self-respecting resident of San Diego could possibly do: *mess* up getting to Fashion Valley. Irritation at my stupidity hovering in my mind, I thought about how to wriggle into the left lane.

I had my plan in place when the light turned green. I was going to slink between the two cars next to me and prepare to make a bold left turn ahead. It is what anyone would have done, only they would not have had an anxiety attack doing it.

As I was making my turn, preparing to wriggle, the car next to me drove into the lane on the other side of the median, that is, into oncoming traffic. The car behind it, lemming-like, followed suit so there were now two vehicles driving the wrong way, with drivers trying to exit the mall coming headlong in their direction.

I sat at my stop sign in disbelief--in the correct lane--and watched the scene play out. The oncoming drivers weaved; some stopped; the drivers on my side stared. The drivers at fault, contrite and panicked, tried to negotiate past all of the hubbub to make their way out of the fray. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be paying attention, and no one got hurt.

Slightly stunned, I made it to CPK without further incident, wondering what all my fuss was about. After all, it should be plain to me that other people in life make mistakes and simply muddle through. Somehow, though, I think that that person shouldn't be me, that as this stage in my recovery from bipolar disorder I should have worked hard enough not to panic over the minute details of life, or have learned to take things in stride, or be able to let things go, or in short, be a perfectly enlightened human being. On the road, I should certainly know where I'm going and how to get there.

Of course, this is absolute hogwash. Everyone makes mistakes, and as evidenced by the wrong turns of my fellow San Diego drivers, sometimes no one gets hurt.