When I was just a wee little thing, maybe 5 or 6, I found myself “lost” in a department store. Mind you I’d been hiding in the center of the rounders, where I fit perfectly and could sit for hours on the chrome cross beams, looking up through the glass on top observing hands flipping through the Garanamals. Sitting there, probably sulking because it was Kevin’s day to match the giraffes shopping for school clothes and not mine.

When I finally came out and couldn’t find my mother, they had to page her. I was that kid - you know the one - “what’s your mother’s name”? “Mommy”. One P.A. system announcement later one very angry (and probably tipsy) mommasita came rolling up to collect me.

That night, my sister Jennifer taught me how to spell my names. All three of them. Eight letters each. Brutal punishment for being temporarily misplaced, especially considering I knew where I was the whole time.

There are things in our lives we may take for granted. Things we may not think about every day, things that go lost that you don’t really notice were missing until you find them again.

A five dollar bill in the pocket of your winter coat, maybe. A picture of a memory, old friends in an even older city with innocent smiles that have long since faded. A feeling you’d forgotten you were capable of, one that brings you to the brink of bursting. Pride, and dreams, and a passion for the future you’d given up on years ago.

It all has to be found by someone, eventually.