Now You're Lost
graphic by Yinne Smith
The sweltering July Fourth heat blanketed my skin as I plunged into the sea-green waters of the Jersey Shore. The orange blossom top and yellow bottom of my two-piece soaked up the lukewarm water, while tiny pieces of sand floated into the crevices of my body. The part of the Atlantic Ocean I occupied that day was filled with parents lifting their kids upon their shoulders (only to dunk them into the water five seconds later), elderly men and women splashing around, and couples that would probably break up before the summer was over. I started swimming farther and farther away from the shore as my eyes grew hungry for the rising waves. Occasionally, I would whip my long black box braids out of my face and turn towards the sand to wave to my mom, little sister, and brother, who were staying on the shallow end of the ocean. I must’ve been in the water for at least thirty minutes, letting my body float over the foaming waves, ignoring everyone around me. And for that half an hour it was as if the ocean and I were the only two souls in the world. The only sounds I heard; crashing waves, seagulls, swoosh swoosh, and bubbles popping. The only sights to see; various shades of blue and green surrounding me.
At some point, my long limbs were wrung out like day-old clothes in the washing machine, and I swam back to the shore. I tore off my goggles and gazed upon the yellow sand for my mom, sister, and brother. Where were they? Suddenly, I didn’t see my dad laying on my family’s lime green beach chairs either. I looked at the families laid out in front of me and they sure didn’t look like the faces I passed by earlier as I ran from my family’s spot on the sand and into the water. I trudged up and down the rows of beach blankets and chairs as I tried to find my family. The sweat on my brow, blinded my vision as I realized: I was lost.
I fought the urge to cry, as the rainbow of people, beach toys, and summer heat spun in front of me. I didn’t have my phone on me since I was swimming, and frantically asked people to borrow their phones so I could call my mom or dad. I even used my eight-grade Spanish skills to ask a woman who only spoke Spanish if I could call mis padres. No one answered. My mind rushed to thinking about how I would have to find the Seaside Heights Police station if I couldn’t find my parents soon, and that I wished I memorized my grandparents’ phone numbers like my mom told me, years ago. It was like I was living through one of the Law & Order episodes, my mom and I binged on Saturday mornings. Tears threatened to break out again as my brown toes kicked up sand, but I pushed them back down. Stay calm, I told myself.
Out of nowhere, I saw my brother sitting down and crying in one of our beach chairs. I ran faster than Forrest Gump and hugged him. He was sobbing, I was sobbing, free of fear and full of relief. My brother told me my mom and dad were at the water with my little sister looking for me. We ran together to find them, and I collapsed into my mom’s arms. My dad came running over, and all was right again.
It was my idea to have my family spend July Fourth of 2019 in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, one of the several beach towns along the Jersey Shore. I was obsessed with MTV’S Jersey Shore that year and secretly hoped that my parents would swing our big minivan over to the notorious house that the cast members lived in after we watched the nighttime fireworks. Once I was reunited with my family, we all decided it was a good idea to wrap up the beach part of our trip and spend the rest of the day exploring the boardwalk. I laugh looking back at it now because no one else around us knew the stress my family had endured for the last hour as they tanned under the melting sun.
I have always had a fear of getting lost. More specifically, I have always had a fear of getting kidnapped. When you are lost, it’s easier to wander into the wrong stranger’s presence and have no one nearby to help.
Long before that July Fourth day, I grappled with that fright. I don’t know if it was all the documentaries I watched growing up, like The Cleveland Abduction on Lifetime, or the T.V. shows I watched with my dad like The Family on ABC. Maybe it was the numerous scares I’ve had growing up, each time I wandered off from my mom in Target or Chuck E. Cheese.
However, is the fear of getting kidnapped, all that unusual? As soon as little kids are old enough to walk to school by themselves, they are told to beware of the person who offers you free candy if you go into their white van. The day before Halloween, elementary schools teach lessons on “Stranger Danger” on the projector, hoping kids wouldn’t get snatched while parading dimly lit streets. Rows of children sit in that chilly auditorium and yell out “Say no to strangers!” and our teachers smile.
People often assume that parents share this kidnapping concern more than their children. I mean it’s true. If I were a parent and I watched popular missing children cases on the news, such as Madeleine McCann, that would be enough to make my kid wear one of those backpack leashes until they were eighteen. But, in all honesty, wouldn't it make more sense for the people who are in danger to be more afraid? In kidnapping cases, children are the ones in danger, so it would make more sense that we would fear this fate. However, children are stray puppies in this equation. Stray puppies that wander the street don’t understand that they can be taken away by animal control and be potentially euthanized. Similarly, children don’t fully understand kidnapping and the potential dangers it can cause; they just know that strangers are “bad.”
In 2019, there were 29,000 cases of missing children in the United States, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Over 91% of the cases were endangered runaways, and only 1 % of the cases were nonfamily abductions. Therefore, it is very rare that a child will get abducted by a complete stranger. I wish I had known that information when I was ten years old and had nightmares about these things.
As I’ve gotten older, my fear of getting kidnapped and being lost has depleted. For example, in 2019 I started my freshman year of high school at a school in the center of Midtown Manhattan. This was a big change from getting dropped off and picked up by my parents in middle school because now I had to take the train. It is very unlikely that someone would kidnap me off the train in the middle of the afternoon, so instead, I worried tirelessly about getting lost. Subway lines are confusing, and the difference between streets and avenues still makes my head spin. My stomach would lurch each time I saw a train approaching, and I’d have to check the sign again to make sure it was going downtown. It is no surprise Google Maps quickly became my best friend because it always let me know exactly where I was. Once I started exploring new neighborhoods in the city with my friends, they always knew they could count on me to have every part of our trip planned out! I knew which trains we had to transfer onto, how far we had to walk to the stores we wanted to visit in SoHo, how long it would take, etc. It made me warm inside having all these details sorted out.
But after the hectic year of 2020, I realized that in life you are going to get lost. And that getting lost does not mean you are going to get kidnaped. It might’ve helped that my state was in quarantine for ¾ of the year, and still kinda is in a weird lockdown state so I haven’t had the opportunity to get lost as often, much less leave my house, but yes, in life you are going to make mistakes and get on the wrong highway. Sometimes the GPS will say you are 30 minutes from your destination, and it ends up being an hour drive because you took the wrong turn. We like to think that we know where we are going and how we are going to get there in life, but in all reality, nothing is guaranteed. Life is not the detailed itinerary your mom makes when your family takes a trip to Disney World. You will get stuck in traffic, get into accidents, lose your grip on the wheel — and all the other cheesy car metaphors will indeed come true. Sometimes we need to get lost. We need to be pushed into desolate lands and go through experiences we wouldn’t have known existed if we stayed on the mapped-out path.
When I got lost on the beach that day on the Jersey Shore, I learned something. That was the summer before my first year of high school, and it was filled with anxiety, sleepless nights, and tear-stained cheeks. My group of best friends and I were all going to different high schools, and I suddenly wondered where I fit into the world. Who would I be without them? And what if they forgot about me and the world I’ve known for the last three years, moved right on along? It was all just so much. So, when I got lost, I understood that the only way I could “find myself” was through getting lost in the unknown. There will be many more unknowns in life. School hallways I have yet to trek through, busy airports with confusing directories, new jobs, new houses, and more. But there will always be someone on the other side waiting for you to collapse into their arms. You just have to stick it out in the dark, and the reward will be greater than you ever imagined.
This year and in the years to come, I’m going to embrace getting lost. Whether it’s in Target, on the subway, or on the beach; it’s okay to not know everything sometimes. As long as I am safe and aware of my surroundings, there are beauties out there that will be found only if I take the barren road.