Losing Stuff

Life in the Boomer Lane has a long history of losing stuff. She has written about this, talked to friends about this, and ruminated about this with herself, usually between the hours of 1 and 4 AM. In spite of it all, she continues to lose stuff. She understands that. What she doesn’t understand is that, once lost, these items, like her virginity, her youthful brain cells, and her ability to do a back bend, can never be found again.

LBL travels a lot, mostly to see her three children, who, by mutual agreement that didn’t include her, all decided to live as far away from each other and from her as possible, without crossing an international border or ocean. She loses something at each place, mostly inconsequential items that can easily be replaced. Nothing is ever found again. She has lost count of how many hair clips, iphone charging cords, toothbrush travel containers and items of underwear have vaporized between Brooklyn, Charleston, and Seattle.

Her last three trips exceeded even her own expectations. In Brooklyn, she lost her diamond ring. Not only was it her own diamond, it also contained the diamonds of several family members, making it worth far more than money. LBL is convinced that, for the rest of eternity, her grandmother, aunt, and mother-in-law will be looking down from whatever territory they currently inhabit, shaking their heads, and tsk tsking. Aunt Gert, never the optimist to begin with, will be vindicated that she was hesitant to have given her ring to LBL to begin with.

Next came Maine, where LBL’s glasses vaporized. LBL refuses to get another pair. Instead, she will wait until she is elegible for cataract surgery, and have her eyes corrected at the same time. She lives, instead, in a soft- focus world, a cheaper and far more gratifying way of looking at herself in the mirror than getting cosmetic surgery.

She has just returned from Charleston, where she discovered that her necklace did not arrive home with her. The necklace, of small monetary value, was the one she wore the most.

LBL should add that her daughter in Brooklyn, her son in Charleston, and her friend in Maine, turned their houses upside down to find LBL’s lost items. LBL could have save them the trouble. These items had clearly found another dimension in which to reside, one that already contained her grandmother’s earring, her mother’s engagement/promise ring, and her right baby shoe.

In a perfect world, her lost jewelry items would magically return to their original owners, so they could continue to enjoy them as much as they did in life. In addition, Aunt Gert could tell everyone around her, over and over, that LBL should never have taken the diamond out of her ring and created a new ring. The vast array of other items, the iphone charging cords, etc, could go to some kind of celestial charity.

The good news, here, is that, as time goes on, LBL has fewer and fewer items of value to lose, unless one counts memory, flexibility, and stamina. She will continue on, and, in spite of her ability to lose stuff, she will buy new stuff on occasion. She knows she is tempting fate, here, but at least she won’t make Aunt Gert fret when she loses the new stuff.