I miss getting lost. It used to be one of my favorite things to do. Now it seems almost impossible. One of my favorite memories from college was when a friend led me around blindfolded until they found an obscure corner of Bloomington, unmasked me and I was suddenly lost in a town I thought I knew like the back of my hand.
When I was 16 I went overseas to stay in England for the summer. The second day I was there I went out to explore London. This was my first time abroad. I wandered until I was lost. I then realized I didn't have the address, a map, or phone number of the family I was staying with. Jet-lagged I walked around London for hours, amazed at the picturesque world I'd stumbled into before finally finding my way back home. The next day I wrote a letter to my family describing the experience. My Dad still references that letter regularly as a highlight from my teenage years.
Getting lost can be terrifying but most great experiences have some element of terror in their undercurrent. Maybe some day I will take my kids and drop them in the middle of a foreign city and see how they do. I'm glad my parents did. We all need to get lost once in a while.
part of SmallBox's Think Kit