Embrace Feeling Lost

Alexine Ticman

I had been walking for what feels like aneternity.

One step in front of the other, one breath after another— until one turned intoahundred, and then into a thousand. “I must be goingsomewhere,”Ithoughttomyself.

I had to have been, right? After all, whyelsewouldIwalkthislongwithout a purpose? But somehow, when the days blurred into nights and the sun andmoonwerenothingbutpasserby,I forgot. Like a chip on a ceramic cup, likeamissinghandinacompass.HadI left it on the boulder where I turned right? Had I left it by the river where I glimpsed a brief reflection of myself? DidIeventrulyhaveittobeginwith?

With a stuttering step I stumbled. Down the hill, through the bushes, against theboulders. All the nights I’ve spent climbing aimlessly up, came crumbling down. While the wind sings itseulogy,Iwasplummeting.Whilethe useless maps and broken compasses tear and break, I was descending. Yet somehow, I let myself fall. I busked on the euphoria of going down the high. As if I knew that at the end of this pain, lay something worthwhile. And for once, I got it right. Because after the momentum had left and time stood still, I brushed off the dust and I saw her.

“Anagolay,”Iwhispered.Aquietprayerintothenight. “Daughter,” she answered as she reached out her hand. “My lost, beautiful daughter,” her arm slipped around my shoulders, her hand on the back of my head, and she just–heldme.

She held me like a mother does to a child. She held me like she knew I was breaking and she’s not afraid to pick up the pieces. She told me that the fall was the most graceful and brave thing she’s ever seen. The goddess of lostthingstoldmethatshehasme.Sheseesme.Andthat was when every morsel of self-preservation disappeared. BecauseIwaslost,andsowhat.

So I cried for every painful step I endured just to claim I was going somewhere. I weeped for every wrong turn I trekked because I was lost and the road was empty. I sobbed for every heaving breath I took because they told meIhadtoclimbtobevalued.Thensecondsturned into minutes, turned into hours. When my grieving whispersturnedintodesperateconfessions turnedintoscreams,Ihaveneverfeltmorelost.

Butoh,feelinglostisenthralling.

“Embracethefeelingofnotknowing,”shemumbledinto my sobbing soul, “embrace the journey of the road. Embrace the butterflies of being naive.” She was healing me, I realized. Anagolay is stitching up my wounds and patchingupmytatteredclothesbutIcouldn’thelpbut notice that my compass and map lay still. No magic, no fixer-upper.

“Thejourneyofbeinglostandbeingfoundistheepitome ofhumanity.”

Embracethefeelingofbeinglost,mydaughter.