About personal navigators

In the past few days, my eyes have seen so many of your happy photos.
What’s in them?
Strawberries basking in champagne bubbles in tanned hands.
Hair flying in a speeding convertible.
Cheeks kissed by the sun and smiles as wide as rainbows.

And me?
I sit and feel pure, white envy.
Strawberries. Champagne bubbles. And trips…
“eaten” by My, sleeping cozily in my arms.
“Never mind,” I smile, “my turn will come”—I comfort myself.

But I feel that almost every day, I scroll through vacation photos.
This time, my personal eye stopped on an “illustration” with a caption.
I read it. I remembered.
And I decided—I miss it terribly.
Real, empty-headed vacations. With a personal navigator.

BEFORE SLEEP.
About personal “navigators.”
I sit in a mountain lift with heated seats, like a little cake, looking around.
Mountains.
Beautiful.
Fresh air.

I have one unwritten duty, which I set for myself and diligently follow—
I photograph everything with my phone.
Whether needed or not.
“Maybe it’ll be useful later.”
Because female logic tiptoes on the edges…
…that memories must be preserved.

Meanwhile, my husband—every time he gets into the lift—pulls out a map and studies it carefully.
(as if he really enjoys this process)
There’s barely time to even snap a photo.
Where to get off.
Where to get on.
Where to ski down.
Where to “launch.”
And which lift to transfer to next.

Looking left and right, I wait for the command when my “admiring” will be interrupted, and my vacation-mode ears will be told to get off.
I obey.
I never argue.
Because if not aloud, I at least admit to myself that if they told me to point on the map where I am now, I’d probably just say: “on vacation.”

If we go with the family into a forest, it’s embarrassing to admit, but I couldn’t tell, even a few trees away, which way home is.
But there are solutions.
I’ve never cried under a tree.
Either we go with a personal navigator, or… we walk in the forest as far as we can see the car we parked, to get back safely.

If we go on a road trip, driving through some European city center—my palms start sweating just from sitting next to the driver.
Four-plus lanes,
“millions” of cars,
lots of honking…
and road signs that are hard to understand at first glance.

And…
there I am, on vacation.
Like a little cake.
With that same duty, leaning out the window, photographing with my phone—
after all, it’s very important for the family to have these moments captured.

If they told me to take the wheel and drive alone through some part of central Barcelona—I’d probably hit the hazard lights and cry pitifully on the side of the road.
There’s no discussion about me driving the family on foreign vacations.
I could focus, I know how to drive and I basically know the signs, but then there would be no time or energy left for enjoying the vacation.

Maybe I’m just the type who’s loosely attached to her surroundings, but there was a recent case in Vilnius when trying to find point A, where the GPS led me via the new bypass—after going around three times… I just put my head down, found the contact “Zuikis” in my phone, and quietly, quieter than quiet, after hearing his “Yes?” on the line, I said…
“Listen, Zuiki, I don’t know where I am. Can you help me?”
And he helped.

I don’t know how loudly I laughed inside that I got lost in Vilnius with a navigator, but in his calm voice, I didn’t hear a single trace of my stress.
And thinking about the reverse situation—I already start laughing inside.
It would be very inconvenient for someone else to call…

And that’s only half the trouble 🙂
They don’t get lost.
Or at least, they don’t show it.
Sometimes I feel like they were born knowing maps, roads, signs, and turns.
They glance at maps.lt and instantly understand the situation. Worst case—they zoom in.
If this street is here, it makes sense that the next is there, and the next is…

But what if, after ten tries and an eleventh attempt—it still doesn’t happen?
Maybe when they distributed this kind of spatial sense, we were standing in another line?
Or the one where they distributed beauty?
Or… a boundless attraction to little cloths?
Or… in the line where, without notes, a crazy amount of work and household information lands in our women’s heads, which we juggle like the best circus clowns with colored balls.
When to schedule a doctor, when to pay for a club, what to pack Monday morning for school/kindergarten, what clothes are outgrown, when to go to the kids’/our hairdresser, cosmetologist, or manicure.

I think men wouldn’t be able to fit that much information in their heads.
So maybe it’s equality?
Maybe, standing in these different lines, while they waited at the “navigators” and we at the “multitasking,” we caught each other’s eyes?

☆☆☆

So tonight I raise a toast to our life’s peace.
Or,
to the personal navigators that simplify maps.lt for us (when really needed)
and prevent stress that, when they were distributing strong qualities—pushing through the beauty line—we missed getting installed with a navigation system in our heads.

Kiss them before bed.
Female flourishing and that male radio—two of the most beautiful “happenings” on this earth (at least for me).

V.

P.S. This text is “based” only on a personal experience stick and definitely doesn’t apply to everyone who doesn’t need personal navigators.
Now, period. Really.