I have never been someone possessed about clothes and shoes. Every year I go through my closet and happily give what I don't use and what I feel I should give away. I am not a hoarder. I don't have a habit of lamenting over broken and damaged stuff around the house and keep using them without feeling the need to replace all the time. I have a habit of keeping my house lean. We don't have anything in excess and I don't buy things in excess so I can have them. I do not buy just because it's cheap or there are deals. It's just me. So the image I have of myself is that I am not possessed by my things.
That was heavily tested during our trip to Iceland when we lost our bag. Between me and my husband we only carry one checked luggage. My husband has a habit of carrying a hand luggage but I don't. But this time round, he insisted that I did carry one so I packed a few items for a day or two. In the bag was most of my clothes for the 9 day road trip we had planned in Iceland. When we landed our bag did not arrive. No one was there to even trace it. So all we could do was file a claim and leave.
I was devastated. My husband and I are frequent travelers and we travel all over and never have we had a delayed bag. Even when it was (once when I travelled to Australia) we always were able to find out from the airline people when it was going to reach us. But this time, there was no such hope and we were about to embark on a road trip around Iceland. I did not have most of my clothes. I felt disorientated, that's what I told my husband.
I am not someone who has a lot of expensive clothes. I have a few good ones and for some reasons I packed most of my good expensive stuff into the bag. My Lululemons, Nike shoes, Colombia sweaters and my new Victoria secrets undies and bras were in the bag. Boy did that hurt. I don't think my husband will ever forget "my beautiful brand new victorias secret undies" for the rest of his life. I must have said that every day. All the goods in the bag, if lost, would have been worth over $3000. So for me it was a lot of money and I knew even when my husband kept saying, we'll replace them all when we get back home, I just knew I would not waste money like that. So I was devastated.
For the first time in my life, I was miserable beyond console, over my lost belongings.
I remember my husband saying many things to calm me down in the few hours after we figured we won't be getting it anytime soon. I don't think it made me feel better. So he said perhaps we should go back to the hotel were to spend the night and make a few calls. But I had planned this vacation for month. Looked at routes and places to visit and I had a few things lined up for the first day and now it looked all was going to go up in flames because I could not overcome my grief over missing bag.
But luckily my desire to see Iceland was far bigger than my desire to look for the bag using our vacation time. Thank goodness. I knew if I went to the hotel and tried to figure out what happened to the bag, considering it was Saturday...I knew it would be double misery. I don't handle being unhappy well. Plus it would make us fight too. Then there will be more misery. So we agreed to go sightseeing. I remember telling my husband that I don't want to be photographed cause I was too miserable to smile. So we agreed no photos of us, but will look around.
Iceland is beautiful. The vastness of nature and space simply absorbed my misery, at least that's what I felt. I forgot all about my bag and simply enjoyed the sight seeing. But when we got back to the hotel, it hit me again like a wave. I had a good cry. Sometimes crying makes things better cause I am able to get that boiling negative feelings out of my system. I also said an affirmation. I am not someone who has stolen or taken what has not been given to me. Even if I find things lying around on the street I will not take, because it is not mine. So I said that since I have been good, that my belongings should be returned without any of it stolen. But that would not bring me peace.
So we travelled or 9 days without any word of our luggage. We tried to each out via email when we could but nothing happened. We ended up buying most of our toiletries and some clothes and using laundry facilities in hotels to get what we had washed and cleaned. After the first day and a half most of my regular episodes of grief and despair reduced. But it never went away. It raised it head up from time to time throughout the 9 days.
I realized that it takes one to lose something of great value to understand how much attached you are to them. Yes I was not attached to things if they were lost one at a time over a period of time. But this was a loss in one go. Many things I liked and it made a hole in my heart. I kept thinking about people who lose their houses, loved ones, in storms, hurricanes and landslides....I tried to give myself perspective. I tried to tell myself that I only lost things that can be replaced. There are things that cannot be replaced like people, like your peace of mind. I'm telling you, that work is easier said than done.
But we had a wonderful time. Yes we had a fight or two because of my misery and my husbands matter of factness but overall it was wonderful. I was ready to come back and file a claim for a lost bag cause Air Canada said if you havent' received your bag in 5 days, then we shoud assume that it was lost. So I had to some degree made up my mind to bear a loss of over $3000. I also said to my husband that I there will be continued miserable episodes from time to time for some months to come.
So we were heading back home after 9 days. As we were checking in we tried one final time to ask if anyone could try to locate our bag. The lady at the check in counter was very sweet and she was happy to do that. She took all of the information and any tags that might aid them of identifying it. She said for us to wait by the side of the check in counters so she could ask a person to go through bags. I was surprised. I did not expect to wait...I simply thought they'd take the info. down and check later. There was another gentlemen who was also trying to locate his bag. About 15 minutes later she came to us. She told the other guy that they could not find his bag in the first check and they will go back to do another one. I assumed she had similar news for us. But instead she said, 'we found yours. come back to te counter". I remember saying "Holy crap". We went to the counter and there it was our bag.
We saw it after checking it in Chicago 9 days ago.
At home, once we opened tht bag, it was untouched. Nothing was missing. It was incredible. So we found our bag and all the lost items. We were thrilled. But I don't think I'll ever forget the lesson I learnt. First of all about how we over estimate ourselves and under estimate our attachment to things. Second, to we prudent; I mean these things can and will happen and perhaps a hand luggage is good to have from time to time. Third, never lose sigh of your objectives. We went to have a fun adventure, and I am glad despite all this we have some beautiful memories, stories to share because we knew that was our objective.
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