Being in Lost
I feel lost.
As I write I realise it is less feeling and more a state of being. It is significant. I do not just feel lost, I am lost. I am lost in a pile of contradicting thoughts & competing emotions. Lost in a thicket that is sometimes a dark wood and sometimes a sun speckled wonderland, shifting by the minute. Lost in my own familiar space.
I am not depressed although sometimes I feel it lurking, and I am neither happy nor unhappy although sometimes I am happy and sometimes I am not. I am just lost. I don’t know where I am with me.
Should I just stay here or make a move in some random direction?
I am not sure if I am afraid to move or if I am afraid to sit tight or if there is stuff actively restraining me so I can’t move even if I want to. I am physically comfortable in the world but not so much in myself, although sometimes I am. I do not know if I am choosing to lack purpose in this moment or if I am afraid of or resistant to having it.
I know that the thoughts that come into my head are not mine alone but I attach to them anyway. I know the feelings I have, however pleasant or unpleasant, are universal and will come and go. Some hang around longer than others. Sometimes I think there is comfort in this malaise, it feels familiar. Sometimes I get irritated and accuse myself of sabotage. Either way, here I am, sometimes moving, sometimes forward, sometimes back but all the time here,in the same place, lost on the inside.
My moods, I have discovered, have little to do with what is happening around me. I mean, all kinds of downers can be breaking loose - my car won’t start, my gates won’t work, unpleasant interaction with a stranger or a near and dear, an illness, a tragedy and yet I still feel I can cope, even with a lightness of being.
At another time, there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary and yet anxiety chooses to accompany me through my day or my mood drops into a place where all manner of memories bubble up, past slights I thought I had forgiven others, past misdeeds I thought I had forgiven myself. They are my company in this lost place.
I start looking for justifications or others to hook blame onto so that this discomfort can be put elsewhere but eventually I acknowledge that this does not work for long and accept that it is inside. Sometimes I turn on myself, sometimes I offer comfort and sometimes, I accept it as it is.
Is this being lost really about purpose? A lack of purpose? Driving fatigue or no drive? Is it about cloud cover over the north star, or the north star already overpopulated. It could also be that I don’t know which one of the gazillion stars I can see, is the one. Is there actually even a north star or is that just a concept in a book to give hope to the hopeless. Oh, that is dramatic, I don’t feel hopeless, I am just lost and maybe a star is not where I want to be.
I consider what more I may be looking for because what is enough? I have more than many, for which I am grateful - and weirdly guilty - and less than the few that I compare myself too. I have enough to survive but need more to do more than that and have no desire to do more than enough.
The fear of not enough is now not enough to light a fire. Neither do I want more fear, I have worked too hard to get rid of the stick. I prefer a carrot. “Be careful of what you want”, my mother said, “you may just get it” or “I want doesn’t get”. I repeat this to my children. What's that all about because it didn’t make sense to me as a child and yet here I am parroting it. I do understand it now.
What about others? Have I chosen aloneness in my lostness even though I suspect there are others alongside me also lost or yet others who could show me a way. It takes time to open, yet in this moment I cannot hold another's aloneness anymore than I can go another's way.
If I open, another's lens may compel them to help me, see me as weak, remind me I am strong, worry about my reliability or lean-on-me capacity. They may withdraw or get too close or need explanations I don’t have. I do not want to see that look of concern on their face. I have every inclination but no capacity to worry about what another is worrying about me, so I resist bringing you in. Besides which I am just lost, not broken.
Writing it down, takes it out of me. Perhaps I am not lost, just taking a rest before embarking on the next adventure along a path or through the undergrowth, up a mountain or over the sea or maybe I will just stay here for a while longer, not lost, just resting.
I share my lostness with one who listens and leaves me to discover my own way, a little lighter.
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