Oops, forgot pants
I've been trying really hard lately to practice mindfulness, because I am tired of constantly losing things. I went through and tagged my entire LJ over the holidays, and the fact that "losing my stuff" earned fifteen entries and that I was struggling with this very issue in 2004 really says a lot.
It's not simply the grief at losing a beloved slug hat, or the annoyance at losing a particularly cute set of fleecy striped gloves (as I did over the holidays and still do not understand how that happened), though those things are irritating and painful. It's the underlying knowledge that you're scattered, careless, disorganized, brainless. Except that I have a mind like a steel-jaw trap, which retains facts and trivia for all of eternity... so it makes no sense that my body is like a sieve, constantly leaking small items.
Really, to give myself a little bit of slack, it's that I've got other things on my mind, so these little trivial matters like "Where are the car keys this time?" fall by the wayside. However, after losing the striped fleecy gloves, I really had it with myself. I decided I would pay close attention to all of my small objects, a roll call of items, if you would. This involved saying to myself: "Ok, the car keys always go in the front pocket of my bag. The work keycard always goes in the other front pocket. The sunglasses go in the back pocket. This is where these items live and they have to come home every night to where they live."
It has been working pretty well, and I was giving myself a pat on the back for no longer having to worry about losing my stuff. You can tell there's a "Dun dun DUNNNNN...." moment coming, right? Yeah, well.
I don't know if this can count as "losing my stuff," but this is definitely part of the overall issue. Basically, one of the things I do at work is publish the company newsletter, and I often run contests and give away prizes, which are normally gift cards ($25-$50 value). I had these gift cards in a manila envelope tucked away in one of my desk drawers, along with a bunch of other crap. My boss always told me to lock it, and I would... but it doesn't do much good when the key is in the lock.
So, last night, I discovered that at some point between when I left for the holidays on the 19th of December and now, someone went in and cleaned me out. $500+ worth of these gift cards, gone just like that. The thing is, it was in such an obscure location, pretty much someone just "fishing" for goodies would have had to be really lucky. So, I'm fairly sure that it was an "inside job," because I was rather (stupidly!) open about having these gift cards and a lot of people (people I would say are my friends!) knew about it. It feels really ugly to look around and suspect that one of my friends robbed me. Maybe they didn't think of it as stealing from me, but I'm the one who feels stupid and small and mindless. And that is such an icky feeling. I'm so tired of it.
It's not simply the grief at losing a beloved slug hat, or the annoyance at losing a particularly cute set of fleecy striped gloves (as I did over the holidays and still do not understand how that happened), though those things are irritating and painful. It's the underlying knowledge that you're scattered, careless, disorganized, brainless. Except that I have a mind like a steel-jaw trap, which retains facts and trivia for all of eternity... so it makes no sense that my body is like a sieve, constantly leaking small items.
Really, to give myself a little bit of slack, it's that I've got other things on my mind, so these little trivial matters like "Where are the car keys this time?" fall by the wayside. However, after losing the striped fleecy gloves, I really had it with myself. I decided I would pay close attention to all of my small objects, a roll call of items, if you would. This involved saying to myself: "Ok, the car keys always go in the front pocket of my bag. The work keycard always goes in the other front pocket. The sunglasses go in the back pocket. This is where these items live and they have to come home every night to where they live."
It has been working pretty well, and I was giving myself a pat on the back for no longer having to worry about losing my stuff. You can tell there's a "Dun dun DUNNNNN...." moment coming, right? Yeah, well.
I don't know if this can count as "losing my stuff," but this is definitely part of the overall issue. Basically, one of the things I do at work is publish the company newsletter, and I often run contests and give away prizes, which are normally gift cards ($25-$50 value). I had these gift cards in a manila envelope tucked away in one of my desk drawers, along with a bunch of other crap. My boss always told me to lock it, and I would... but it doesn't do much good when the key is in the lock.
So, last night, I discovered that at some point between when I left for the holidays on the 19th of December and now, someone went in and cleaned me out. $500+ worth of these gift cards, gone just like that. The thing is, it was in such an obscure location, pretty much someone just "fishing" for goodies would have had to be really lucky. So, I'm fairly sure that it was an "inside job," because I was rather (stupidly!) open about having these gift cards and a lot of people (people I would say are my friends!) knew about it. It feels really ugly to look around and suspect that one of my friends robbed me. Maybe they didn't think of it as stealing from me, but I'm the one who feels stupid and small and mindless. And that is such an icky feeling. I'm so tired of it.