Looking Lost

It’s Stampede week here in Calgary.

The midway lights are glowing. The smell of mini donuts drifts through the air. Somewhere a country band is playing just a little too loudly, and parents everywhere are trying to keep track of children whose eyes are bigger than their attention spans.

Every year around this time, one particular memory comes back to me.

My son was about four or five years old.

We were at the Stampede on one of those impossibly crowded days. For one brief moment, I turned my head.

When I looked back…

…he was gone.

If you’ve ever lost sight of your child in a crowd, you know exactly what happened inside me. My heart dropped. My imagination raced ahead of reality.

I called his name. Chris! Christopher! I hurried in one direction, then another, scanning every face. In those few minutes, every terrible possibility crossed my mind.

And then…

There he was.

Completely calm.

I rushed over, hugged him tightly, and told him how frightened I had been because I thought he was lost. He looked up at me with complete confidence and said, “I wasn’t lost. I was just looking lost.”

I’ve never forgotten those words.

As a young child, he couldn’t have known he was giving his mother a lesson she would still be thinking about decades later.

Because there is a difference. Sometimes we really are lost. But often, especially as adults, we’re simply exploring. From the outside it may look like we’ve wandered off course. We change careers. We end a relationship. We start over. We question old beliefs. We try something new. We step away from what everyone expects.

To other people…

…we may look lost.

But inside, something else is happening. We’re following our curiosity. We’re asking better questions. We’re discovering who we are becoming.

Looking lost isn’t the same as being lost.

Some of the most important seasons of my own life have probably looked confusing to the people around me. There were moments when I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going either. But I wasn’t lost.

I was exploring.

There is a wonderful freedom in allowing yourself to be curious without demanding that every step make perfect sense. Sometimes life isn’t asking you to have all the answers. Sometimes it’s simply inviting you to look around.

Who knows what you’ll discover?