The Beauty of Being Lost

Dear Reader,

When was the last time you felt inexplicably and irrevocably lost?

?

Picture a heavy, dense fog, rolling slowly and endlessly off the water, creeping along the shoreline, up the beach, into a house, and enveloping the entire area in its haze. You can feel the droplets. You can smell the mist. The feeling of the ground is beneath your feet. You can move….you just aren’t sure which direction you are going or what you might step on.

In my world, I feel lost constantly. In all senses.

There is lost in the geographical sense, and this is a chronic condition for me.

Prior to GPS, I used MapQuest, and that was always an adventure. I remember printing out 20 pages of directions and feeling like finally…. I would find my destination with ease! Some of you are feeling lost in this moment…

It rarely happened. For what MapQuest could never do for me, is provide directions for the neural pathways I needed to find the way.

Now, when I try and explain how lost I get, there are suggestions of using GPS, and I do. And…I still get lost.

For embedded within the geographical sense of lost is the internal sense of direction. Emotional, mental, spiritual locations and pathways.

And for these, there is no GPS, there is no MapQuest.

Being lost, feeling lost, can be different for each of us. It can occur in different spaces of life, and various relationships, and sometimes it can be undefinable.

The past few weeks in my life have existed in a dense fog. There have been moments that the feeling of being lost has been so overwhelming, I felt non-functional at moments. Unsure of where a foot might land, I stood still. Hoping for a ray of light to burn away some of the fog…seeking clarity.

Being lost can be quite painful. Much like life, there can also be enormous beauty.

The beauty in being lost is the chance for discovery.

Within the fog, all remains, what is known and what is unknown.

Who we are now, who we have yet to become, awaits us, if only we are brave enough to step into that shadow.

For it is a shadow. There is darkness that must be confronted within being lost. And there is beauty in that as well.

The beauty in being lost is the chance for transcendence.

Who we are is not stagnant, unless we allow it to be.

The closer we are to believing we are not lost, the further we are from transformation.

I will never reach an age where I discover who I am. For I am ever-changing. The versions of me that have existed were all me. The versions of me I will become are all me. I may stand still for a moment…or two, unsure of my footing; however, it will not be for long.

For me, the beauty in being lost is that I am always found….anew.

Warmly,

A Woman Who is MapQuest’s #1 Fan