THE ESSENTIALSI pull up to the ATM one morning to get cash before hurrying into the office. As I habitually do, I reach my hand inside and feel around the bottom of my big, designer, leather bag to find my wallet. As usual this doesn’t work, so I pick up the bag and do visual look-and-feel. But still… nothing.
“Dammit,” I curse out loud in frustration as I notice all of the bullshit items I DO have in my bag, not one of them being what I truly need. I have my cosmetic bag with enough MAC and Clinique products to provide make-up service to a brothel house. There’s enough lip gloss to wax a bowling alley lane. I have two flash drives, one SD drive, my Ipod Touch, earphones, a net-book, a cell phone (that actually does more than the net-book so it’s seriously ridiculous to have both). I have a travel-size bottle of mouthwash, some floss-piks, two packs of breath mints and three packs of gum. (I am punk at the grocery store checkout counter. It gets me every single time.) I have THREE sets of extra keys and my work ID is also in my purse. I have no clue why I persistently carry so many sets of keys. Perhaps I have a subconscious fear of being locked out? Vanity is the reason my work ID is in the purse. I should be wearing it, but I always feel it ‘doesn’t go with’ my outfits, so it too is in the bag. Since healthy nutritional supplements help keep snacking to a minimum, I have two protein bars, a fiber bar, lemonade & grape packets of Crystal Light, and a bottle of Dasani water. I have Tums for my stomach, Excedrin for my head, Chloraseptic lozenges for my throat, Airborne for immunity from other folks’ germs, and Aleeve for my back. (Yes, I am OLD, or at least there are many days I FEEL as though I am.) I have feminine products which I don’t even need at this particular time of month but as you can discern from the contents of my bag I am a woman who is deathly afraid of needing stuff and being without it.
Which is ironic because I’m currently WITHOUT the one thing every person SHOULD have when they leave the house--- a damn wallet. The wallet contains ones ESSENTIALS: identification, car & medical insurance cards, social security card, membership cards, cash, and the one thing I need most at this moment- an ATM card. These things in a wallet are things that identify us and show which networks we belong to, even in the event of some unforeseen tragedy in which we ourselves are not able to.
Yet here I am having walked out of the house with bag full of ‘things’ but left the most essential one at home.
Mental light-bulb goes off.
I think my bag this morning is a visual allusion of my life. By all outward appearances it LOOKS good. It APPEARS to have everything it needs. But my life, like my bag, is full of dozens of NICETIES, yet not enough NECESSECITIES. I have more acquaintances and very few true friends- you know the kind, who don’t judge but who will always tell you the truth no matter if it hurts, because they love you. The kind you don’t have to talk to everyday or even every week, but when you do talk they can hear you speak even from the words you DON’T SAY. I have male friends and for the sake of loneliness there are a few that know me biblically, but not one that knows me intimately. Not one to just simply hold me and love me and if one does, I don’t love him back so it’s still a negative. I eat right and work-out regularly, which are very important, but I don’t have a church home or church family for spiritual sustenance. How important can one’s body be if the soul isn’t nourished??? I have job that I love, but I need to go back to school. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do since my kids were toddlers. One is grown and the other two are darn near. It’s something that’s always been important to me but I’ve put it off far too long.
Like my purse, my life has far too many unnecessary items that occupy my time and mental & emotional space. I need to do some serious reorganization. I need to get with the essentials.
It seems that forgetting my wallet this morning wasn’t a mistake after all. I believe it was an essential alarm!!!
© Jan 2011, S.LynneL. as SoulofaPoet All rights reserved.
