When are you lost?

I have often pondered this philosophical question in the past.

When are you lost?

When you realise your lost or is it before and you just haven't become aware?

Yesterday I had a chance to truly test out my theory.

Daydreaming, which I tend to do way to often, I missed my bus stop and went  one bus stop too far.  After getting off the bus I am confident I know where I am and how to get home so start walking in a direction I am sure will take me back to the road I should of been on.

This however didn't happen.

I find myself, eventually one suburb too far and still no road going in the direction I want.

I am not lost...yet

I turn around and go back the way I came from and turn down a road heading towards the direction I wish to go.  I want it noted that at this point, I am still not lost in my own mind just frustrated that I couldn't get to where I wanted the way I had been heading.

As I walk down this cross street I look down another street and see a building I identify but not where it should of been at all.

At this point I feel myself hyperventilating...I had been lost and didn't even realise it, going in the wrong direction and now on top of everything I feel disoriented because the building, I now can recognise, is in a spot I can't orientate myself around yet.

Getting home, over an hour late and 4kms walking out of the way, I walk in the door sit on the lounge and burst into tears like a big girl.

I am geographically challenged but most the time I allow for this and take precautions, but yesterday it hit me with avengence and now I can assert.

You are lost, even if you don't know your lost....

because.....

YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!