The game is just now ending.

I'm so very tired of being so stupid with maps and directions. Some folks find it funny, but I hate that I can't figure these things out, and it actually makes me really sad and disappointed.

A.J.'s game was at noon today, and it was here in Bellevue. We made it just fine. His game ended at 1pm, and we stopped by the house for dessert/snack.

Jack's game was scheduled for 2:30pm in Plattsmouth. When we got home, I studied directions online for several minutes. I tried to Mapquest the park where the fields are located, but the search engine didn't know what I meant, and I couldn't input any more information than just the park's name. I had a color print-out map from the coach in the car, and I studied it for several minutes, trying to make some sense of it in correlation to the few directions located on the website.

Finally, at 1:40, I took a deep breath, hoped for the best, and we got on the road. I drove and drove, and nothing looked at all like the stoplight intersections the coach's map told me to look for. I was supposed to be on Hwy. 75-S, and then I needed to turn left at the intersection (with a stoplight) for Hwy. 34-E. I looked and looked and looked. I drove forever, and the minutes just keep ticking by on the clock. At 2:20pm, we had just hit Union, Nebraska, and the road signs on the side of the road said 75-S:34-E - that we were on BOTH roads at the same time. I was so frustrated because I can't even understand how we can be on two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT roads at the same time!

I turned around and traveled back up 75 going north. I turned right at the first stoplight we came to (several miles down the road), and then I was able to find the right roads to lead me to the soccer fields. Finally!

Only, it was then 2:40, and his team was nowhere in sight. In fact, there were only a few families of a girls' soccer game that had just ended. I asked for help from a set of parents, and I showed them my map. They weren't sure where to go, but they did live in Plattsmouth, and their best estimates placed the field I needed to find at a completely different park complex - about 15-20 more minutes away, and back down 75-S.

So I tried again. Finally, at 3:00pm, I was so very lost from where they had said I probably needed to be, and there was just no hope of making it. The game would've already been at halftime, even. I told the boys that it was too late, and that I was just going to head back home. Jack seemed fine with that, knowing that I had really, really tried.

I wasn't fine, though. About a minute after telling them, and the two of them sinking happily back into song in the car, I started crying. I felt so frustrated, so stupid. I mean, this isn't a new thing for me - I'm constantly lost - and I hate it. I hate just not understanding maps even though I try SO HARD. I hate missing out on something because I'm too stupid to find the location. I just feel so dumb.

I pulled myself together, but then the tears started again a few more times. I am just so disappointed in myself. I'm crying even now, as I type this entry. And I'll be fine in a bit, of course, but then when Philip gets home at 5pm, and he asks how Jack's game went...

I know I'll cry and feel sad, frustrated, stupid and disappointed again. :-(