3 days had passed and I continued to ignore her loss. She has always been around, must be hiding somewhere and playing her cat and mouse game with my memory again. Yesterday despite my repeated attempts to recollect where I had last left her I simply could not remember where she had hidden herself.
I checked all the places at home where I tend to carelessly leave her , hunted every corner of the drawers and she was still not to be found.
I had almost given up hope of finding her and the only solution I could see was replacing her. I would have to reset all connections – between the new her and me – between the new her and my home.
I don’t lose my possessions easily – almost never have. And she is an important one. In one last attempt before I could accept that I had misplaced her; I emptied the handbag and still found nothing; and then I caught her in my hands but I still could not see her. A small hole in the inside pocket of the purse and the house key had slipped in between the gaps. I finally managed to take her out from her hiding space and I sensed a huge relief in my mind.
She reminded me of the relationships I often take for granted, even if they disappear for a few days I still don’t go looking for them , I know they will be around. And when they don’t turn up as I expect them to, it puts me in a frantic state of mind. I find myself chasing them and wondering what I did wrong, what is it that I had said, what is it that I had done, what is it that I had forgot.
I can’t lose them – the similarity to my house key ends there, if I lose my key, I’ll replace her and enter my house, but what about those relationships I lost? Will I be able to replace them and move on? And I already know the answer – I cannot. They are inseparable from me – and I won’t be the same person without them.
And it is almost like they read my mind. They are just testing me and they quietly slip back in the same place I knew I had left them and make me realize that without them I’d be lost.
They are still around, they will always be – in the one corner of my heart – they are the key to my existence – and they want me to seek them, to reach out to them like that little house key of mine hidden in the corner of my handbag.