Thank you so much, Brigindo! It's good to know that this worked out well for others... this is all such unfamiliar territory!

You should absolutely not be ashamed of not having a degree - get one if YOU want one and YOU believe that it can help you... school and formal education aren't for everyone (and I don't say that as in, "not everyone is good enough for school", I mean that not everyone needs it to do what they want in life, not everyone has the resources to get through college in the 18-22 years old range, etc.). I say this as I'm more than half-way to a PhD (eek!), but truly, as cliched as it sounds, some of the smartest people I know are not in grad school with me AND many didn't even go to college. Know what you want and figure out how to get there... if education is part of it, great. If not, that's great too. But don't feel ashamed because you don't want the same thing as everyone else or you didn't realize you wanted to go a certain path at some societally imposed age of grand decision-making...

Being lost just makes me freak out so much, it's sick... even if I know I will be fine (so I'm NOT lost in a terrible neighborhood with no money and a dead cell phone with no numbers memorized), it's that complete (involuntary) surrender of control for me. Or at least that's what I think it is. Plus, I have a tendency to second guess myself anyways and then when you get lost, it's easy to beat yourself up over a bad decision (why did I leave that damned map at home? why did I agree to meet someone here?) and that obviously doesn't help anything... just taking a deep breath and sometimes buying myself a fro-yo along the way help (more than anything else anyways)!