Lost

Today I got lost.
Beautifully, wonderfully lost.

Today I was lost in thought and prayer and I missed my turn off in one of the many Las Fuentes gloriettas. By the time I began to pay attention, I didn't know where I was. I knew the neighborhood, but not the specific area in relation to where I had come from and needed to go.

For a moment my chest tightened and I became worried about the time crunch for meeting someone and my lack of people and or data to access my maps app to get me back on the right track.

But then I stumbled upon these.

A new flower.
A new shade of purple.
A new scent.
One that I had not yet encountered in Mexico.

And suddenly I was glad to be lost.
Suddenly I could hear the birds and feel the light mist that was beginning to blow.
I was thankful that my phone was essentially useless because I could rely on my senses.
I was more aware of each step that my feet were taking, I was listening for the sound of rushing traffic to carry me in the right direction. I found some people and challenged myself to ask them How I could get to Lopez Mateo in Spanish. I looked at the homes I was passing...their rich, vibrant colors and their many unique styles. I wondered about the people that lived in them. I took deep breaths of fresh air heavy with the scent of a coming storm. I hummed to myself.
I was taking it all in.
I was completely aware of my surroundings.
I was fully present.
In a moment, I was thankful for the wrong turn.

And that got me thinking.

I am also thankful for the wrong turns that got me to here.
It was in getting "lost" that I am able to experience the beauty that is here.
It was the not knowing and the uncertainty and the wilderness wandering that led me to this place.
It was unintentionally veering off of the path I had planned on taking and accepting a different timeline from the one I had imagined.
There were moments when my chest tightened and I panicked inside thinking of the time crunches and the pressures and the sense of not knowing.
But once I let them go and embraced the getting lost, I was delighted to find my new, uncharted path led to here.

Often times "lost" carries a negative, stressful connotation.
We dread being lost.
We dread not knowing our direction, our road, our surroundings, our ETA
But the truth is, we are most alive and most aware when we are a little bit (or a lotta bit) lost.
When we travel the same route over and over again, we stop paying attention. We become unaware of our surroundings and our senses. When we know exactly the time it will take from point A to point B we fail to leave room for adventure to find us.

The truth is that to be lost is to be alive.
To be lost is to be fully present.

Today I got lost.
Beautifully,wonderfully, gloriously
lost.