Lost vs Misplaced

There is a big difference between misplaced and lost.  Each has it’s plus and each has it’s dread. 

I buy fairly expensive shampoo and conditioner because I have hair that needs it.  I left my shampoo and conditioner in the shower at the campground.  The trip would be more expensive than the replacement.  I understand the truth in that and accept that it is gone.  I will not get it back.  I’ve lost my shampoo and conditioner.  It’s a bit of an expensive lesson for it was fairly new; it makes me feel frustrated.  Shampooing with what’s in the bathroom here is less than optimum, but my hair smelled of smoke and I needed to wash it.  The conditioner makes my hair soft – actually too soft.  It looks very limp and the curl isn’t even.  One day soon, I’ll sigh and buy a new set.  And next time, I’ll set in place a method for remembering to get it.  But in the scope of things, the loss was not catastrophic.  I’ll not be ruined by it.  Lost means I don’t get it back –at all.  I replace it or live without it.  If the loss causes me difficulty, I live with it.  It’s done.

Misplaced feels like lost.  While up on the mountain, I bought a waist pack at the Outpost.  I like it and was willing to pay a bit more because it looks nice and is just the right size to hold things I need when I hike or walk.  It was the only one they had in that style. Honestly, it wasn’t much more than the shampoo and conditioner will be to replace.  After I bought it, I tossed it on a tub full of stuff in my front passenger seat for the ride home.  It was there when I got back in the car after a pit stop on the way home.  I noticed it and was again pleased with the purchase.  Unloading the car, I misplaced it.  My husband tried to help me find it, knowing how much I liked it.  We backtracked and thought through the process and considered the possibilities.  I put it on at the overlook just before we came off the mountain.  I had adjusted it to my size and it held my phone and a second lens and several other items as we walked around.  Yes I know it was in the car when we left there.  No I couldn’t have left it at the gas station, because I didn’t get it out and also I saw it there when I got back in.  And yet the more we looked the more it seemed to have vanished.  It appeared I had lost it, but I knew it had to be somewhere. This morning, a day and a half later, I found it in a very unlikely spot.  I’d grabbed it along with my large water filter assembly in the unpacking process.  It was in my clay room on the stool beside the wheel.  I was as tickled as I had been when I first saw it in the outpost.  What seemed lost was only misplaced and now it is mine to enjoy once more.

I have lost things several times in my life –some of them crucial with serious repercussions; some of them frivolous and easily forgotten.  I have misplaced things many times –some of them crucial with serious repercussions; some of them frivolous and easily forgotten.  Yet when an item is truly lost, it is no longer mine in any sense but memory.  When an item is misplaced, it is still mine and will one day surface even if it is beyond it’s usefulness.

I feel there is a great lesson in this.  It bears consideration.