There’s one thing that’s been bothering me for more than a year. Life goes on, good things happen, bad things happen, boring things happen, amazing things happen…But somewhere in that mesh, my mind keeps coming back to one thing, one item I lost as a child, which has been haunting me these days.
When I was about seven years old my grandmother showed me a purse. It was a family purse and it was very pretty. It was a small square with silver handles. The purse was brown and glossy, very vintage and chick. I begged my grandmother to allow me to wear this purse during a concert in our small town one night. After so much begging she said yes, and I excitedly put all my precious belongings in the purse: a little comb with glitter, a mirror, and a pencil sharpener. I remember there were a lot of people waiting to enter the hall, we were all pushing each other and all I concentrated on was holding on to my sister’s hand. Once we were out of the crowd I noticed my purse was gone. I ran back to the entrance and looked for it, but I couldn’t see it. I promised my grandmother I would give it back and I failed. Everything I thought was beautiful, glamorous, and felt was mine was gone.
A few years later, I started spending a lot of time in the theatre where the concert was held. That’s where all my acting began, so I would roam around the rooms and the costume room. One day we were supposed to pick some props for a show and something extraordinary happened. I saw my purse! I was told the purse was found by the guards, but since nobody came to ask for it they left it in the costume room since it was so pretty. I named everything I had left in the purse as a kid to prove my ownership and there it was a mirror, comb, and pencil sharpener. I was asked: “Oh, ok, do you want it back?” “No.”
At that time, I thought it was the right thing to do. If my purse could be used for a great play, and if I knew a part of me was nested inside the building, I knew it was all fine. It was the right thing to do, it made sense and it was best for everybody. I never thought of the purse since. More than ten years…nothing.
Last year, however, it came to my mind again. I was walking home from the grocery store one night and I thought I needed to have that purse to prove to myself I can get anything I want. It was complicated, it was awkward and childish of me, but I began searching for it. I called some old friends from the theatre to ask if I can take a look in the costume room for the purse. The lady who keeps the costumes at bay contacted me and told me she could not find it, but I’m welcome any time to see for myself. I spend one whole summer in my hometown before I moved away to another country and I never went there. I kept thinking about it, but I never did. It’s become a symbol I think. It’s still the proof I need to myself that I can get anything I want even if it’s from the past, yet it’s also my reminder that some things we should not have. Some things are not what we need.
I leave myself to fight off these feelings constantly. My incredible hate towards people who have my possessions, my jealousy towards people who have what I want, and my maturity, which realizes if something is not coming to me then it’s not meant to be with me. I don’t know who would win in the end. Maybe I will march back home and find the purse and I know I can find it easily, I know exactly where it would be, it’s like an instinct. Or maybe I will accept that the purse was never meant to be mine and I never ever owned it, I never spend enough time with it, just a gorgeous night once when I placed everything important to me in it and it disappeared. Let’s see who wins- desire or maturity…I will let you know how it goes.