Foundering

The other day, I had cause to seek out my Social Security card. I thought I did, anyway, though it turned out that it was not needed. That's irrelevant. It proved elusive, and once it was apparent that it was missing, the thing I wanted it for was entirely beside the point. My Social Security card- which is a critical document establishing my identity and which can only be replaced so many times in one's lifetime- was missing.

I pitched headlong into a terrible state of panic. I should say that this was at maybe 7 o'clock in the morning after I'd slept for no more than two or three hours, and I was coming off a period of some ill health. For those reasons and others, I was in a diminished state, and quite prone to just such a fit of hysteria. It seized me hard, and nothing mattered other than locating the card and restoring a personal state of calm.

Forget-Me-Not

I've written about losing things before, but a string of events has transpired that makes it seem worth writing about a somewhat related matter. There's losing things and there's forgetting things. Forgetting your keys is if you leave them in the door of the house and then sheepishly retrieve them. Losing them is if they're in your pocket at the beach and fall out in the water. The thing that separates the two things could be in the state of mind that holds sway over the person in question. In all practicality, though, I guess the only real difference is in the outcome. In the former case, it's a lot easier to laugh about it. As I said, I've forgotten a number of things lately under what might be called singular but mundane circumstances.

Perhaps a month and a week ago, I went grocery shopping. The store is on the main boulevard which marks the western boundary of our block. I'd say that it's about half a mile away, and I walk to and from it when I shop. It's fair to say that I'm hot and tired when I come back, usually with several heavy bags which I'm working hard to keep from breaking and spilling my groceries on the sidewalk. On this particular occasion, I brought them to the door, set them down as I grabbed my keys to unlock the door, and went inside. Hours later, my roommate came home incredulous that I had left my groceries out in front of the door for almost half the day. I could scarcely believe it myself. It was dismaying to say the least.

"Did I leave X at your place?"

An alarming recent trend has been the rise in the leaving behind of personal possessions when I go places. Lately it has been books- one was lost for good a number of weeks ago, and a whole string of them have gone missing only to turn up later. Losing things is an old habit for me, and one which I kind of thought for a long time that I had gotten better at. In grade school, I went through a lot of jackets, and a whole lot of anonymous kids somewhere were wearing them as I would move on to another one. I still remember wistfully the reversible jacket which was red on one side and, I think, denim on the other. It was gone forever one day when I left the school grounds too excitedly.