You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on.

This next post has been inspired by a text-message sent to me today by my former roommate in which she informed me that she has read my blog. This one goes out to you, Mary!!!


I lose things. I lose things all of the time. Small things that it makes sense to lose (like earrings), big things that it doesn't make sense to loose (pairs of pants), important things (passport, license, school id card), things I use every day (retainer, cellphone), things that would probably stay in the same spot for most people (Have you seen that pink lamp? The one with the clear glass base?)...

This quality of mine is not something that I am proud of, but it is a part of myself that I have come to terms with and am at ease with. If I were to worry over every time I lose something I would be frantic all of the time. It has taught me to minimize my attachment to material things and learn how to live without them. (Does anyone want any lessons on how to spend a semester at Smith without a card for the dining halls?)

I know it is a luxury of my privilege to feel somewhat minimal consequence when it comes to this trait, though in many circumstance it has gotten me into very deep trouble.

The main reason I think I lose things is because my mind is not very centered- I am always all over the place. My mom constantly tells me I need to be more in the moment, but that is way more easily said than done. I want to be able to concentrate on exactly where I place my keys, but when my emotions are harried and my thoughts are zipping around, focus doesn't even seem like an option. When my life is in chaos, my mind is in chaos, and I have to wait until everything settles down before I can find what it is I have lost.

For instance in May, I lost my retainer (...again. This time not under Mary's side table. What a good roommate, though, she mailed it to me!! ). I looked high and low for it, and I finally decided to do without it for a while. Now, in July, I decided to look for it again. I walked over to the cup I keep it in every single night-- since May I have looked there a million times-- and there it was. Sitting right there.

I know this sounds incredibly crazy, trust me, but the thing is when my life is crazy I am incapable of seeing past whatever it is that's distracting me. My life is forced to stay cluttered until my mind is refreshed enough to find order.

This is something I am actively trying to work on. I know that meditation will help- one day I'd like to make it part of a daily routine. But what if in the calm of my mind I am sad? Or a super-villain? I guess I will just have to see.

ANYWAY. Losing things is what I do.

Here is a picture of an envelope Mary made me so that I could lose things less!! 

Well I was going to post a picture of an envelope Mary made me so that I could lose things less except, well.... I lost it.