More left-over end-of-the-holidays drama, it seems. Yesterday we had a pretty serious breakdown in communications. It all ended well, but it was incredibly frustrating.
Background - We went out of town (driving 2 hours each way) to visit the parents and grandparents. We took my daughter, who has been home from college on Christmas break, with us, and she was headed back to college from there. Because she's been home for the past few weeks, we've been switching around less. She's met Paul and Kiara, and even Cherish, and the kids will switch in to visit with her, but we switch a lot less when she's around. I'm her Mom more than any of us are anything else. Being her Mom is really important. Well, at my grandparents, I was out the entire time, completely and solidly. That's how it is around my parents.
So what that means is that I was stretched a little thin, more tired just from being out than I usually get. Family visit done, it was great, no problems. I left, driving alone now, and drove for a while, then stopped to visit some more friends along the way. That was also a great visit. They are kink- and multiple-friendly and knowledgeable folk. Kiara's been known to be out at their house, but not this time. I leave there, and I'm driving home and...
Paul's driving back toward town. He doesn't remember for sure how he switched in, but he's driving. That means he's about 14 years old; he's driven before, and it's okay. What's not okay is that, as he's approaching town, he realizes that he's not sure how to get home. And when he tries to 'search the files' for that information, nothing's coming up (the computer memory analogy works well here). Normally, Paul has full access to almost everything in my memory. This time, somehow, that map file wasn't available to him. As if maybe I'd 'logged out' with the file open? And he couldn't get a message to me, either. I'm getting all this now as if reading the logs of what happened; I don't remember, myself.
Well, Paul didn't panic. He tried messaging Boss, but got no answer (he was asleep at the time). Paul kept driving until he saw an exit that looked familiar. I live in an apartment with Boss and Metamour, but I also own a house that I used to live in, where some friends now live. The exit for the house is the one that looked familiar. So Paul took that exit, and followed this familiar route until he found himself at the house. One of my friends was home, so Paul went in and asked for help. He was embarrassed to find himself tearing up when he said he couldn't figure out how to get home, but he asked, and that's really important. I'm really proud of him.
The friend pulled up a map on the computer, and showed him how to get home, but then invited him to go for hot chocolate or ice cream, or just hang out for a while. The two went for the hot chocolate, and actually ended up having a good visit. Boss woke up and checked in, and Paul headed for home, using the route they'd looked up on the computer. About halfway there, something finally jiggled loose for me, and I managed to check in enough to free up the access to the memory for him. So by the time he got home, I was accessible, Boss was accessible, and the memories needed were accessible. Everything was covered, no problem.
The really funny part of the story? At my grandparents, I got a Christmas gift - a new GPS for my car. But my home address hadn't been plugged into it yet. Yep, GPS is pretty useless if you don't know where it is you're going...
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