My boyfriend recently told me I seem a bit lost. I’ve never had anyone tell me that my whole life. I’m a twenty-five-year-old, who is, according to the world’s standards, about seven years behind when it comes to figuring out what she wants. From life, from friends, from her education, from herself. You’re supposed to know it all by 18, right? You’re supposed to have dreams, have goals, you’re supposed to know what you want from life. So yeah, when my boyfriend told me that, I smiled, brushed it off and said “Yeah, I’m lost, so is a shitload of people out there”. But that night I went to bed with a very heavy weight crushing my chest, preventing me from taking those long, peaceful breaths that slowly take you to the land of dreams.
It’s been a few days since then, and the thought of how lost I am keeps on creeping upon me daily, just for a few seconds, like an annoying fly that keeps you awake at night, you know, the one that knows the right moment to fly by your ears, just enough to keep you awake. Yeah, to me being lost is the enemy the same way that fly is. Well at least it was. Anyway, I’ve been struggling with this thought for a bit now, and I decided to try and write it all down. I am no writer by any means, but I am currently reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron – mainly because I’ve been obsessed with paint brushes since I can remember — and well, a big part of her book is writing thoughts down. Which is what I am doing. So let’s go back to this whole lost thing.
To the outside world I am lost because I have a bachelor’s degree in one field, a master’s degree in another completely unrelated field, and now I decided to enroll in a high-school level course in yet a third field which I think I might like, but how can I know. I may as well still be very lost after that course. Actually, I will definitely still be lost. Because to me feeling lost somehow feels like a part of me that won’t ever leave. What does it even mean to be lost nowadays? Am I lost because I refuse to settle for a life that is planned out, because I get an education in something only to realize it’s not really what I expected it to be? Because I’m supposed to find a good job but I am struggling with finding out what good means? Good money? Good environment? Good for me? It’s almost as if we made up this negative connotation of being lost to label all those who don’t fit into a pre designed category, they are not conformists nor wild-spirted dreamers, but maybe more loners who tend to grow old unhappy and alone. That’s kind of what being lost seems to imply. Ever heard someone say “You don’t even know what you fucking want?” Yeah, it’s always said with that disappointed, angry, annoyed tone, as if it is my fault that I don’t know. As if I should have figured it out by now. As if I’m less worth for not knowing.
I think what struck me the most is that my whole life people assumed I have my shit together. She looks like she knows what she wants. But I never really did. And I don’t know why they assumed so. Finally hearing someone realize I am not that person who has it all figured out made me extremely aware of how negatively we look at all of it. No one wants to be lost, everyone wants that perfect career, that ultimate soulmate, that feeling of eternal happiness. Well, being a twenty-five-year-old comes with realizing none of those probably exist, and life is what we make out of it. But I refuse to believe that acknowledging I’m lost needs to be a bad thing. It can’t be a bad thing. Not when being lost led me to meet great people, to move, to explore, to find sides of myself I had no idea even existed. Sure, some of it was bad people, bad places and bad decisions, but it’s nothing compared to how much good being lost brought me. Which is why I reject this bullshit concept of lost immediately meaning you need to work harder to figure your shit out. Because who can guarantee me that there even is a possibility to not feel lost. Can we even figure it all out? I mean, I have friends who seem to have at it all and I know for fact they still question the roads they took their lives down. They still seem lost to me. Which brings me to the conclusion that being lost must in some way be an emotional state as well as a mindset, just like happiness, or sadness, or anger are. To an extent we choose them. And to an extent they find us. Completely uninvited.
And all of this makes me wonder if being lost in the heat of it all is something we all go through, pretty much constantly in all aspects of our lives. What if we can never really find ourselves, what if just being lost is okay? And having someone close to me call me lost took me to that realization. I think being lost is also being me, and I don’t think I can ever get away from that. Even if I had it all, whatever all means to me, I think a part of me would still feel like that angsty teen that just does not fit in and questions everything. So maybe I need to embrace that teen, accept that teen, let that teen live inside me, and tell the whole damn world that I am lost, but I’m also okay.
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