Getting Lost for the Sake of Getting Lost

Every time I've moved to a new town / house / job I've realized just how far I'm willing to go to create variety in my life. I travel to the new location one way and insist on finding a new way back home. I simply hate going the same route twice in a day. This has been fine in towns that have simple graph like road plans and flat topography. In older and or more hilly places one cannot count on the roads to connect. Such an assumption could lead you to a whole other county when driving in Georgia. Getting lost though is fun as long as it leads to new ways of getting found.
It seems I cannot give up on finding new ways to get from place to place. Living on a mountain has made this tendency down right dangerous. Some wrong turns actually lead to a dirt road whose 50 foot drop doesn't have even one slat of barrier from what must be a deadly fall. This, nor driving for almost 30 minutes around and around the mountain has stopped me from finding about five different ways home.
On foot it is more manageable and yet slightly more perilous. An evening walk can turn into a frustratingly rigorous night walk with only the north star to give you a hint. Somehow I never think about what is behind me, only what is ahead.....and this can really get you lost.
Though getting lost can be frightening, I usually like trying to find my way back and cannot control my urge to wander when the urge strikes. Up until recently I indulged in this habit too often, believing that getting lost always helped me find something else. ...a part of town I didn't know about...a new trail more secluded than all of the others....a part of myself I didn't know existed. It was the L.A. parking garage that has woken me from this dream.
I was a little late for an interview in a part of town that is especially crowded with plastic surgery victims. The only place to park was in a humongous parking garage with about 7 stories. There were no numbers for the spots, only colors for areas. I noted a fire extinguisher with a number on it and made sure to park next to it. When I returned I could not find my car. It gets worse.... Somehow my car had vanished along with my mind. I looked at every car on two levels over the next hour and a half!!! No car...no where.
The worst thing about losing your car in a parking garage is that no one can help you. The second worse thing is that there is absolutely no scenery...just a bunch of very nicely dressed mothers piling their kids out of there gas guzzling S.U.V.s. I felt like I might never leave, not to mention the price of parking was going up for every hour my car was in the garage.
When I finally found the car and exited the dark garage, the sun felt like a decompression chamber embracing me for the real world after my brief but maddening adventure in the parking garage twilight zone. I hadn't lost my mind after all, just a little pride and some skin on my feet that had been rubbed off from walking so much.
I still wander and don't mind getting lost. I've just learned not to get lost in the dead ends.