Getting Lost

Yesterday I almost got lost in Toronto. Today I would give anything to get lost anywhere.

My sense of direction is horrible. I can get lost anywhere. If you don't believe, watch me. I will get lost trying to find the simplest place in the world. Which is why I always carry a cell phone and the number of the person I am trying to reach. Putting me downtown without a map and very little idea of where I am going tends to be a bad idea.

Today, I just feel overwhelmed. Things I was expecting to remain in my life aren't and the prospect scares me. In order to deal with that I am attempting to lose myself in a book. It's sort of working.

I have always been a bookworm. For the majority of my life I have been lost in another world, another time, another place, another person's adventures. I get lost in a place different from where I am because I had to. I was not the most attractive child and that tended to lead to teasing and most of my time at school being spent alone. I can remember vividly what it felt like to sit on the hill, all alone, just enjoying life. It didn't bother me for the most part because I always someone else there, always another adventure for me to be a part of, at least for a little while.

I can't understand the people who don't love to read. I don't understand why some people read so slowly. I have never been that way. I can be in four different centuries by the time I have to eat lunch. In the time it takes to watch a movie, I will have walked with someone else through the conflicts they face and the resolution they can come to. I got lost from the place I was, usually the grassy hill at my elementary school, and got to go a place where I wasn't teased and was beautiful. I got to escape the choices I didn't want to make and the chances I didn't want to take.

Some days I wish that I could go back to that. Life was so much simpler when I could claim the adventures of the characters whose lives were more interesting and exciting than my own. The choices I don't want to make now are still staring me in the face when I come up for air from whichever location I have landed in. The chances I don't take stare back at me accusingly for not doing more with my time. I don't get the luxury of getting lost as easily anymore. There are too many people waiting for me to allow me to fly instantly to other places. Somedays I think that this must be what it's like to be a mother, having someone constantly calling for you and needing some form of attention.

My idea of losing myself or getting lost has changed drastically over the past few years. Faced with the idea of deadlines and difficult decisions, losing myself tends to work better in meditation or even a quick nap. I haven't had enough time to read lately and so my imagination is what is going while I cook dinner, clean bedrooms and run errands. While writing papers at university, music seems to be the name of the game. There is always something for me to lose myself in (legal, not harmful things) that keeps me sane. For those minutes, I don't have to be me. I can be whoever I want and be wherever I want. Even lost in the crowds of Toronto, I don't have to be there. I can be alone in a Tibetan monastery somewhere in the mountains of somewhere that is not here.

Whatever my method of getting lost, I can always find a way. Somedays it takes more effort than others, but I can always get lost. I also always get to come home.