Reading r_pendragon's journal

Two weeks ago I flew out to New York to meet up with a good friend of mine from Tokyo. It was a great time, we had a lot of fun, etc., etc., and all that trip stuff that was lovely but doesn't really merit recounting here. (Though as an aside, it was a strange role reversal, being in my country with my language, culture, currency, when we're both used to being on her turf. We got a Susan B. Anthony dollar from the subway ticket machine and she was so adorably confused and enthused. ;))

Anyway, my flights were good, and as I was waiting for my baggage to come out when I got back to Minneapolis, I reflected smugly that my trip had been a success, with nary a snag.

Murphy's Law applies here, of course: at that moment, my bag came tooling down the ramp with the front pocket open. I elbowed my way over to it, and unsurprisingly, something was missing–

My makeup bag.

Of all the things that could have been missing– souvenirs, cameras, CDs, at least this wasn't a major item. And clearly it hadn't been stolen; who would want used makeup? Gross.

But I've been so upset by the loss, primarily because the bag was a parting gift from my friend's parents before I left Japan. The makeup itself, though expensive, is replaceable, but the bag was a gift from the Kobayashis.

This got me to thinking about how much attachment one can have to inanimate objects (somewhat in tandem to my last journal entry on a similar topic.) Money cannot buy happiness, but it seems as if sentiment can: every time I opened that bag to pull out mascara, I'd think of the Kobayashi family and the time they took us on a brutal-but-fun hike through the mountains in Nagano, or the time we met in Shinjuku for desserts and made goofy videos on my friend's cell phone.

I've called both the Minneapolis airport and JFK airport repeatedly, and nothing's turned up. I still have my memories, of course, but losing the bag was like losing the physical manifestation of those memories.

I think what surprised me the most was how attached I can be to things; I've always maintained the conceit that, if need be, I could give up everything I had, as long as I still had good friends and family, and still be happy.

Now I've realized that although I'm still not terribly attached to things per se (though I have do have grotesque materialistic tendencies), I am very attached to the tangible nostalgia that things can represent.

My stepdad isn't mean, he's just adjusting. -Death to Smoochy

This post was edited by r_pendragon on Apr 08, 2005.