Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Lost

I need to organize better. At last count, I've lost several bills (found just past the due date), at least $20, a Metro ticket, three rings, one necklace, a CD, and an action figure. All within the last 25 years.

I have never taken the notion of losing things well. I was the kid having nightmares about misplacing library books. I had nightmares along the same vein about raging fires heading towards my house while I scrambled to save all of my dearest possessions (and there were a lot). I used to take all of my favorite toys (and there were a lot) into the basement during tornado warnings.

Now there are times when I imagine how much less clutter there would be if a fire did hit my place (sometime when Apollo and I were both gone, of course). How much less stuff I could get by with, really. And yet still, the memory of each and every lost possession I listed in the first paragraphs rankles, standing for a lapse of judgment and vigilance. Drop your guard for a second and something you take for granted is gone.

I know this is one more manifestation of my tendency to carry the world on my shoulders. "You've lost something, and it's all your fault; you could have paid more attention, you utterly horrible person; why should anybody trust you with anything if you can't take care of it?" And I know I have way too much stuff, and that if I kept better organized with the things I have they would be less likely to become the things I had. But my heart aches over the lost things, anyway.

The parable of the missing coin shows quite a knowledge of people.

2 comments:

Brittany said...

Good thoughts.

At the beginning though, I thought you were going to say, "...one necklace, a CD, and an action figure. All within the last 24 hours." Because that's how it would have read if I was writing this entry.

:-)

Nick said...

Oh, I know of the feeling of losing something. You're just desperately trying to figure out HOW you could have lost it.

And I know how you can attach a value to everything, especially by way of memories. Every time you pick it up, it brings back the memory, and you can't bear to get rid of the object, even if you never touch it or it sits in a box most of the time!