On Losing yourself
I’ve always been a fan of losing myself.
When I was 16, I went to London as part of a European trip with my grandparents. Traveling as an angsty teenager with my aged 70+ grandparents, 11 and 8 year old cousins, I already felt particularly lost. Not in the good way either. This trip was full of moments and eye openers. I experienced an overactive 8 year old who would later become one of my best friends. I experienced my first taste of racial prejudice in an Athens taxi. I swung in a tyre swing in a Welsh countryside. Rolled in long stretches of lush grass. Marveled at sunbeams peeking through tall trees in as we drove past vineyards. Imagined what a Greek goddess must have felt like atop Poseidon’s temple.
But the one experience that lingers in my mind 13 years later happens to be after my first experience of post British high tea at the Ritz. If I close my eyes, I can transport myself to that exact moment when I lost myself in a good way.
A sense of renewal accompanied me, walking through an underground tunnel of the Green Park station where a male street performer was belting out the lyrics to an acoustic version of Britney Spears’ “Hit me baby”. He looked right at me, fixed his eyes on me and sang his heart out as I walked by. In my mind, it was a moment of movie magic. It might have been less dramatic in reality but all i remember is my hair blowing in slow motion, I coyly laughed and shook my head as I confidently walked by.
The one thing I took away from that moment is that I lost all sense of reality. It was the most freeing moment.
I’ve endeavored to recreate that feeling since. And thankfully my life has given me those moments. I’ve lost myself in a good novel, in cleaning the wounds of burns victims and changing their dressings, stitching wounds, in moving anonymously in a large crowd, getting lost in a new city, taking in outdoor musical performers, being 21 at the culmination of a night out in a club when the inebriation was just right - eyes closed while dancing at midnight under a rain of confetti, in painting or drawing for hours. In staring into the eyes of a lover and losing all sense of time.
I think there is great merit in losing yourself at times. If there is any moment where one has to let go and let God, then take the opportunity, you never know when next the stars will align for that moment and I promise you you won’t regret it.