Someone To Be

When I was in high school, they were building the High Five in Dallas. I used to get into my car and drive at a perfectly legal speed (read: hightail it) up the freeway until I hit the construction site. With a big gaping hole in the ground and a bunch of very large cranes, it looked like something out of Fern Gully. I felt like I had found the end of the earth and was staring into something that should've been a starry abyss.

I felt small.

I also felt lost. Because there was a giant, gaping hole in the intersection of freeways, every road was being redirected by signs. Inevitably, I wouldn't know where I was going, and I'd end up in some small county in north Texas. Then, I would have to use my own deduction skills to find my way home.

I think this is one of the many ways in which I taught myself independence.

Most people hate getting lost, but I enjoy it. When you're lost, you have no control. There's no responsibility, and no one is depending on you for anything. It's like being in a free fall. Everything is blurry, and the wind is on your face, and you haven't hit the ground yet. In fact, you might not even know where the ground is.

Now, I know my way around Dallas/Fort Worth too well to be lost for more than five minutes. The moral? I don't get lost anymore.

I miss getting lost. As sick as it sounds, I think that purposefully getting lost was my way of finding myself.