Lost and Found

When I first started writing this post two weeks ago, the tone was a bit different: snarky, hurt, sad, anxiety-filled and… truth be told… it was bordering on pathetic. But as I was re-reading it this morning, I realized that those things don’t really pertain to the way I am feeling right now. Honestly, it’s a beautiful day . I woke up to gentle spring sunshine streaming in my window, I have a perky yellow cup of steaming coffee with vanilla soy creamer awaiting me, and I have plans to do a bit of baking this morning and to get my hands dirty in Garrett’s parent’s garden this afternoon. I’m happy, content, healthy and generally loving life.

So, on that note, lets fast forward past the snark and get to the good stuff, shall we?

Here’s the de-snarked quick version of the previous post:

On our second to last day in Costa Rica, we got a bunch of stuff stolen, including our cameras, our ipod, one very well-loved pair of super-quick-dry jungle pants, and our computer… complete with all our thousands of pictures from the trip. It sucked. A lot.

The previous entry spoke a lot about my sadness, my anger, my guilt, my frustration. It spoke about all the million “what if’s” and ways it could have been different. But, it mostly spoke about loss. I’ve never had anything stolen before, and I was literally just sick with misery for a few days about the most significant material loss I’ve ever experienced. Those pictures were precious. Ones that I’d hoped to share with children and grandchildren. Ones that I was planning to do crazy artsy collages with, and fill the walls of our some-day-when-we-buy-one house. (As I write this, I’m starting to feel the snark starting to sneak back into… so time to fast forward once again.)

But, here’s the thing… snark or no, the honest truth is that today is a new day. Somewhere not so terribly deep below the surface, I have all those feelings still, but they are starting to fade. I think there will always be some sadness (and understandably so), but honestly, and luckily for me, I just don’t have space for all that negative junk in my world right now.

A friend, upon hearing that we’d lost our stuff, said to me… “You know, just because you lost your photos doesn’t make your adventures, experiences or feelings any less real.” And I’ve really taken that to heart. I was heavily in the doldrums until I refocused on that simple truth and now I feel like I’ve really shaken off the burden of all those crappy, sad feelings and have been able to just enjoy and embrace the funness of coming home. And, happily enough, I’m realizing that while my memory is usually unimpressive, my powers of imagination are a force to be reckoned with. (Take THAT you shitty thief bastard!) I’m able to recall a lot of our trip, and even without the photos, am able to paint a picture with words of our time “out and about.” And… anything that I can’t remember, I feel completely licensed to just make up! I mean, it’s not like we have the pictures to disproove anything either! (Fair warning to all, this whole series of events just might turn me into a pathological liar… or at least a really good story teller.)

The last two weeks at home (and it’s been two weeks exactly today!) have been beyond fabulous. I know I use that word a lot, but really, it couldn’t be more perfectly used. If I sound like I’m on Cloud 9, it’s because I am. I used to have this quote in my college dorm room that said “Life is meant to be good”, and that’s just how I feel right now. We’re snuggled up in the bosom of our family and friends. We’re reacquainting ourselves with creature comforts (like being able to open your mouth in the shower) and life back home (who knew we’d miss couches quite so much?). We’re enjoying connecting with the people and places and things that we’ve not seen in a while, and we’re also taking time to be thoughtful about the things and people and places we’ve now left behind. I’m realizing that I lost some stuff. It was crappy, really crappy. But crappy things happen, and this crappy thing is over and done with. While I don’t think I’ll ever call getting a bunch of my stuff stolen a “blessing in disguise”, I will say that there I’m choosing to focus on the good that is happening in the here and now. The good news of today is that I’ve found about a million new things to be grateful for and to be excited about in just these past two short weeks. Turns out that I’ve found a lot more than I’ve lost, and that’s a pretty glorious feeling.

In short, life is good. Really good.

(And I hope yours is too.)