The Cedarville Review 2018

40 THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW Despite the hundreds of thousands of people who own the palm-size compasses, and the fact that now every iPhone user has access to one with the tap of a finger, around 2,000 people still get lost in the woods each year. Many of them are children who wandered off, found hours later by neighborhood search parties; others are hikers found as deteriorating remnants of torn flannel or bone or frozen under avalanches of snow, never to be seen by human eyes again. Psychologist Paul Dudchenko claims that every person has an innate sense of direction, or an inner compass. And yet, people continue to get lost, to lose themselves. Getting lost seems inevitable. I’ve been lost in emotion, books, the tenth aisle of my local Wagoner’s grocery store when I was five years old. In middle school, I “lost” one of my friend’s t-shirts so I could keep it for myself. If I had a penny for every time I lost one, I’d no longer have an empty bank account and I could actually buy that pack of peppermint Extra brand gum I have to be chewing constantly. I could not even begin to count the number of instances where I’ve lost track of time. I’ve lost sleep over the fact that I don’t know where my future is going, and I don’t know where I will end up this side of eternity. My senior year of track and field I lost the 300 meter hurdle race when I barely nicked the last hurdle and fell hard on the bumpy black rubber in shamed defeat. Last year I lost control of my brother’s old black Alero and spun sideways into a deep snowbank. Sometimes I lose my appetite.