Blue Canary In The Outlet By The Light Switch, Who Watches Over You, Make A Little Birdhouse In Your Soul

--"Birdhouse in Your Soul", They Might Be Giants

When I got lost at Epcot I had a couple of hours to contemplate what I was going to do depending how long it took my aunts and my brother to find me. I didn't know then that I was going to bump into Brandy. Had I known that maybe my experience for those first two hours might have been different, but I'll never know. For all I knew I was going to be alone for the whole time which left me with a feeling of hopelessness the likes of which I had never experienced before. In my head I knew I was going to be reunited with them eventually. Yet the questions of how long and by which circumstances that would occur kept popping in my head. It was a new experience for me in many ways. I've always been independently minded, but I've always known where and to whom to turn to in cases of emergency. That was an emergency I was ill prepared to deal with.

The two plans of action that I decided were best suited to the situation were to return to the shop that I was supposed to meet them at. I thought that they might keep on checking there for me kind of the same way families set up a rally point when they get separated. After checking the restaurant where we had lunch, I kept going to the store to see if they would eventually show up.

They never did.

My other plan was to stay by the entrance of the park. Epcot only had one exit and entrance spanning a width of maybe twenty yards. If there was any one place that a party would eventually have to pass by in the entirety of the park it would be the entrance. This took up the bulk of my waiting time in those first two hours as I didn't want to go blindly rampaging through the park calling out my aunts' names like some desperate and hopeless child. Not only didn't I think this would accomplish much, I simply didn't have the courage to leave the safety where I knew they would eventually find me. It's like they say when you get lost in the woods; the best thing you can do is find a safe place to stay put. People are more likely to rescue when you're not getting separating yourself even further from people who are looking for you. So by the entrance is where I stayed for a good ninety minutes with only the occasional foray back into the shop to make sure they weren't still looking for me there. By the entrance is where I waited. And waited. And waited.

It was during this time that the thoughts of never being found in the park crept in. I started making contingency plans for that eventuality. My next step had the wait been extreme enough to last till the park's closing would be to head straight for where we parked the car. If the gates of the park were a relatively safe bet for being reunited with my family, the parking lot at the car would have been the safest bet. Then, had the car been inexplicably extricated from the lot, I would have called a taxi to take me back to the motel room we had rented.

As you can see I wasn't without options. It's merely all my options involved taking a lot on faith and all my options involved waiting for an undetermined amount of time.


my story's infinite
like the Longine's Symphonette it doesn't rest


It was the waiting that frustrated me. I've always been an individual who tries to show up early to an event. A window of fifteen to thirty minutes before the appointed time is usually my rule of thumb. During the times I have to wait I console myself with the fact there's a definite time that my waiting will come to an end. I think that's why I got so flustered when people are late with me. When you agree to meet at a certain time I take it as a verbal contract. I take it with the utmost seriousness, which is the whole reason I show up rather early. I don't ever want to be the one who broke that particular promise. And when other people treat appointments as flexible, I take it personally. Whether it's friends, families, or anyone else, I don't break plans and I rarely change plans. That's why waiting to me is no big deal. Hell, if I show up an hour early to a place I know I can always go to the local bookstore or call Breanne up to pass the time. Everything's cool because I know the exact moment when my waiting will come to an end.

At Epcot I had no such luxury. I was entirely in the hands of fate for that period of time. I could have been waiting for ten minutes (which I was really hoping would be the case) or I could be waiting for ten hours, seeing as I got lost just after lunch and the park didn't close till midnight I believe. As it was, the difference was split, and I was only lost for six hours.

Yet the first two hours were probably as dire as I've ever felt. I didn't have a time to rely on. Cel phones weren't even around for me to let them know where I was. I contemplated calling over the whole park for them to come find me, but I didn't want to be the dumb kid who had to get a friendly staff member to help me. Damnitall, I was thirteen. I wasn't going to rely on somebody else to get me found. I couldn't even politely wait by the entrance. I had to keep my eyes constantly scanning the crowd in case they left the park amidst a whole sea of people. I had to be intentionally restless.

I guess you could call it panic. I guess you could say I was frantic for the two hours. You wouldn't be wrong.

For two hours I wasn't enjoying myself at all. I was so concerned that I wouldn't be find in a timely fashion that I was letting the experience ruin my time there. I kept checking my watch. I kept running around the front of the park--from the shop to the restaurant and back again. I kept going over the steps in my head what I needed to do to make myself noticeable to my aunts whenever they came wandering up.

Then, after the two hours, I had what some people call a moment of clarity and others call an epiphany. I decided that the three of them were probably having fun without me. Two hours was a long enough time to make me realize they weren't actively seeking me out. Two hours was a long enough time to make me decide that the rest of my time there wasn't going to be spent just sitting around. And it was like I gathered all the fraying ends of my attention and weaved them back into something resembling me again. It became apparent that the only plan I should have been making is which exhibit, which ride, which displays to go see next. Suddenly my spirits lifted. I was able to enjoy myself again.

I had a purpose again. My purpose was to stop worrying and relish the opportunity to go where I wanted to go, to spend as much time doing whatever the fuck I pleased, to be able to decide on a place to go and not have to put it to a vote. In other words, my purpose was once again calibrated back to the underlying principle I've always more or less lived my life by, "if it makes you happy, then it can't be that bad," otherwise known as the Gospel of the Crow.

I didn't like being the person who put too much stock in how other people might be worrying about. I didn't like being the person who took time out of my schedule to make things easier for everyone else. I didn't like being afraid to leave a certain spot.

Once I came back to the person I really am, I enjoyed the rest of my experience more. Even when I found Brandy, I didn't mind helping her out. It still felt like my choice. It still felt good to me and not something I was saddled with. After all, she never really asked for my help. Indeed, when we first met it took awhile for her to warm up to me. In the end, though, it made me feel better to reunite her with her family, if only because I knew there was no such individual out there would be doing the same for me.

In the end, I had four good hours and made a new connection that day by being true to the person I was. If I had stayed stockstill by the entrance of the park I would have missed out on all that. In the end, the day I got lost at Epcot and the six hours I spent wandering more or less on my own probably was the most fun experience I had on that vacation.

Sometimes living a life that's free and good mean isolating yourself from what people tell you you should do in a situation or even from what common sense is screaming at you to do. Sometimes you have to shut out the entire world, wall your spirit in, and make decisions based on impulse and reacting to the circumstances in unpredictable ways. Sometimes being happy means finding that happiness by any means necessary.

Sometimes you need to lose yourself to find out what's important to you.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers