MISSING OUT ON PURPOSE

Some people go on retreats to find themselves.
I went because I couldn’t sleep, and because the only time I felt anything close to myself was when I slipped away alone into the green.

In the days before the jungle walk, my mind kept circling the same mess: frustration, sadness, restlessness. It was loud enough to wear me out and vague enough that I couldn’t pin it down. I was miles from home in a place built around healing, but the only real relief came when I got away from everyone else.

They scheduled a group outing: a hike to a remote beach to gather clay for face masks. We piled into a van and wound down a narrow, one-lane mountain road. Whenever another vehicle appeared, someone had to reverse until there was enough space to pass. It was slow and bumpy, and whenever another vehicle appeared, someone had to commit.

We passed through villages that seemed to spill right into the road, children barefoot in the dust, chickens wandering through yards, whole families balanced on scooters like it was nothing. Life was happening inches from the road, and none of it had anything to do with us.

Eventually, the road gave way to jungle. Vines wrapped themselves around trunks and hung low across the path. Everything looked older than us, older than the van, older than whatever reason we thought we had for entering it.

The beach was quiet in a way that made people lower their voices without being told. A purple hammock hung between two trees, and I went straight for it. I made a beeline for it, kicked off my shoes, pulled my hat low, and lay there until my body started to unclench.

As a teacher, I am almost never fully off. I am used to tracking faces, moods, movement, timing, what people need. I wanted to stay there until my body forgot what it had been holding.

While others gathered for instructions, we were warned the water was rough. Most of the group went off to find clay. I stayed behind with a staff member and two other guests. Liliana glanced at me and asked if I wasn’t worried about FOMO.

I blinked.
“No,” I said.

I wasn’t afraid of missing out. I was exactly where I needed to be.

Later, I wandered barefoot along the surf, past boulders, until I found a quiet stretch of shore. I pressed my heel into the wet sand and watched the ocean erase it.

An employee came to get me and said it wasn’t safe to be alone. I nodded and followed, told the others I’d catch up, and once their voices faded into the trail, I quit trying to find them.

Instead, I wandered.

No phone. No map. Just a water bottle and my instincts. The air smelled earthy, like the greenhouse my father kept when I was a child. Coconuts and mangos littered the jungle floor. Vines tangled overhead.

Eventually, I realized I was lost.

My eyes stung. Not real crying, just that sudden burn that comes when you are too far out and too alone. Here I go again, I thought. Getting lost.
My family would either worry or laugh.

But I didn’t panic. I didn’t pray.

I stopped. I looked around. And once I stopped acting like I needed to solve it, I noticed where I actually was:

Green wrapped everything. The stillness felt real on my skin. I was standing in a place no one else would see the way I was seeing it.

This moment wasn’t for the group, or a photo, or a story. It was mine, and I let myself have it.

The jungle gave me what the group never could: silence, beauty, and room to disappear without consequence. I passed old stones and fragments of something once built — half-swallowed now, unmarked, unclaimed. It felt nothing like the kind of adventure people package and sell back to you. There was nothing to recover, nothing to prove, nothing to turn into a lesson. Just the place itself and the fact that I was in it.

Eventually, I found a dirt road and followed it back to familiar ground. I arrived just as the clay group returned, laughing and relieved. We climbed into the van together, breathless from the uphill walk.

Back at my casita, a lime-green frog sat by the door like a tiny greeter. Dinner was chicken, shrimp, and chia pudding. I took my plate to a side table, choosing distance over conversation. It was easier to sit nearby than to sit with. Less performance. Less pressure.

In my regular life, I am almost always responding to someone else, students, coworkers, family. There is almost always something to answer, track, or give. In the jungle, none of it followed me.

Liliana’s question echoed back. FOMO? No.
Missing out wasn’t something I feared. It was something I chose.

My kindergarten teacher once told my mother she was concerned because I preferred to play alone.
It wasn’t a flaw. I just did not need what other people seemed to need. I have always known how to move toward what quiets me, even when I ignore that knowledge for long stretches.

I used to think peace meant having the map.
Now I think it may have more to do with not leaving myself just because everyone else keeps walking.

—Tonya Snyder