During these years (2016-2019) I saw the bumper sticker, “Not all that wander are lost”, about a million times. It seemed that every time I turned around it was there. My universe had a funny sense of humor. I can say that there were many times over the years where I felt lost. I first I didn’t know why. It seemed like there would be moments when I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. There were times when I didn’t want to be in the house and I didn’t want to be outside. I didn’t want to be anywhere. Those were the times that I dreaded the most. It is a space in-between reality. Where nothing is happening and it starts to drive me crazy.
I remember it through out 2016 and 2017. I had settled out of that space by 2018. But with the children moving away it seemed to trigger it all over again. By the end of 2019, I was lost. It was the stripping of identities that would put me in this space. I had a certain identity with the children. I was a caretaker. I was their second mother. So much of my energy had gone into that reality. Now that was gone, joining my other past lives. It was changing, leaving me with that lost feeling again. Lost is a strange feeling to describe. It is a strange feeling to sit in.
Now that I was there again, it felt so foreign to me. As the year’s past, I would find it unnerving to end up in the same space. There was a part of me that felt I was right back where I started from. Though I knew deep down I was at another level of the same thing. I had not gone back. I had not returned to the old. There were more identities to shed. It would feel the same but it would feel different also. Like I said. It was a strange space.
I knew that I had to honor the space but it was a challenge for my human. Who was I? What was my purpose? I was not sure of the answer to those questions. My work had made traction but it was far from where I wanted it to be. I didn’t really feel like I was making the difference that I needed to make. That is the game of the ego. It always makes us think that we are not doing enough. It never failed when I wanted to focus my attention on something else, there was nothing readily available. Perhaps my ego wanted a distraction. Perhaps my universe was pointing me in a different direction. It really did not matter. All of those questions would be answered in the wash.
I knew one thing. I had to pick the new. I had to go forward into the new timeline. Even though every part of me wanted to cling to the old ones. That was the space of lost. I wanted to be found again. I wanted things to be different. I wanted things to go back to the old. I didn’t know what I wanted.
No one can know that feeling of lost until you are in it. The experience is what is important. That is what I would teach over and over again. The lost place is not a fun space but it is pivotal in this process. When the ego is stripped down to nothing and there are no words to describe who we are. We become something else. Maybe we become a hybrid. Maybe we become a unification of all our aspect of ourselves. It was mine to create. It was mine to discover.
Each moment I was in that lost space was an opportunity to create something else. It was an opportunity to be somewhere else. It was a chance to do something new but the key was always not to get attached to it. It was to embrace it. I would come to believe that all that wander are lost. That was the point of wandering in the first place.
****2026 Annette**** I am in this place again. The space of Lost. My current realities are closing out and my caretaker role is ending. This time I feel permanently. Directly supporting others will transition to a different kind of support pillar. How do I know? I have balanced the scales.
I supported the children as they grew. I have supported the old as they transitioned. I experienced both ends of the human timeline. The discovery and wonder of the children. The regret, sadness, joy and fear of the elderly.
I might revisit these realities in a different vibration later. But It will not be like these were. These were “teeth cutting,” revealing so much about myself and how I showed up for others.