True
It was a pink bag, a Pepto-Bismol pink bag, with alternating snowman in vertical rows. She clutched the garish, fuzzy, lime-green handles, all four pairs of them, in one hand, the other hand holding magazines that had kept her company on the long flight from Ohio to Louisiana.
She sat in the green chair that didn’t belong to her, looked around at the house that wasn’t hers and decorations she hadn’t put up. It was her friend’s home; hers had flooded. Still, she was home for Christmas, and her friends were grinning at her expectantly. They tore into the identical bags she gave them, ripping the green tissue paper to find snowman-shaped boxes that matched the gift bags. There were apple-scented body lotions, candles that she had stuck sequins onto, candy… there might have been more, but that wasn’t important. It might have been important to her, but all her friends could think about was how happy they were to have her there, sitting in that chair, doing a crossword in her magazine as they scarfed down the candy.
When she left, back to the foreign state that was slowly becoming familiar to her, the smiles that had been on her friends’ faces hurt. The tissue paper that had been ripped out of the bags was suddenly cherished, and the candles that would never be lit were placed in prominent places. The care packages that had been sent to her, the e-mails and phone calls, just didn’t seem enough. How could they be? The awkward meetings, the strained conversations, they were all too rare to ever be able to have a chance to return to normal.
The heartfelt letters were all good and caring, but one can only write so many heartfelt letters without being repetitive. The painful cuts and deep wounds of lost friendship were slowly becoming numb, but the friends were unsure if it was because time heals all, or because there was just no point in caring anymore. Every visit, instead of making the cuts better or alleviating the pain of not seeing her, only made the scars worse.
If a picture could be displayed, a picture holding a memory of a wonderful time with girls on a beach, bare arms and tanned legs and calm water, if that picture was seen every day, what would happen? The friends tried to hold on at first, they really did, but it was hard. Many a tear would fall when the pictures were seen or the souvenirs dusted off. Eventually, it was just easier to pack it all away.
But it was so confusing. At random moments, the friends would realize they didn’t want to let go. And then they did. Except they didn’t. What would they, what could they do?
A year has passed since she stood in the living room of a friend with the presents. In the same house, for that whole year, the expressive bag that resembled her personality so much had sat in a large plastic tub, keeping the other Christmas bags company. A few days before the grand holiday, one of the friends was tramping down the stairs when she noticed a flash of pink beneath the tree.
“Who used that bag?”
A younger sister had apparently chosen, out of all the bags the family had to offer, to use the Pepto-Bismol pink bag with the unique, yet slightly frightening, green handles. It was seeing light for the first time in a year, and all the friend wanted to do was shove it back in the dark. The memories that resurfaced with the bag were too painful to think about, what with it being so close to Christmas. The bag was holding a coffee mug, for a grandmother. It was not holding what it should have.
It should have been holding the love and the ties that the friends still felt for her, for the girl who had to move away when the circumstances were over her head. It should have held the beating of the hearts of all the friends, which still beat as one when they had to think about her. The repressed memories, the tears and the pain and the love, that’s what should have been inside that bag.
And instead, there was a coffee mug.
The friend staring at the bag opened her mouth to begin to argue, to plead for the sister to pick another bag, but stopped. She closed her mouth. She sat down on the sofa. And she watched the news.
She hates the news.
They had said and said they were ready to let go, they did let go, and yet they found that they were really still holding on. The sight of the bag underneath the tree was screaming at the friend to just let go. She had let go of so much already, surely she could let go of a friend she hadn’t seen in months, a friend who had made a whole new life.
Watching the bag go to another house, to possibly be used again and make its way around town would be letting go of the bag, yes, but just physically. Actually letting go of it wouldn’t solve anything.
People are dying on the news. Wives of mountain climbers are making speeches. A reporter is looking appropriately interested. Miles away, a girl is having Christmas in a house that’s hers, but that two years ago, wasn’t.
And a bag with a coffee mug is sitting under the Christmas tree, a bag that was smiled at and once held hope that a friendship could survive. If only it knew when to draw the line between letting go and holding on, then maybe it could share the secret with the broken girl on the sofa.
But then again, it’s just a Christmas bag. Why make it more than it is?
The friend would cry for it, but after all, it's just a bag.