Lost Luggage, Lost Love

I stare at the luggage carosel, willing with all the make-believe powers of Jean Grey I wish I had, willing it to start turning again. Go on, I whisper to it with my completely real telepathic abilities, hoping to seduce the slabs of rubber into movement. Go on and make that whirring, whining noise, and start turning again. You have to. Because my bag is NOT FUCKING HERE!

"All luggage from Flight UA8650 has now arrived. " That fucking lying voice in the sky. "Passengers whose bags did not come through the carosel, please submit a baggage claim at the Baggage Claim Office. Thank you."

I put myself together and calmly walk over to the door with the big blue sign that says Baggage Claim. I act as if this happens all the time and that I'm not insanely worried about having to spend the rest of the week naked because all my clothes went missing. The slight tremble in my voice as I submit my claim betrays my portrayed serenity.

"You motherfuckers locate my damn suitcase or prepare to have your bitchcunt lardass sodomized ten ways till Sunday."

I'm such a people person.

After promising to deliver my suitcase to my new apartment, in the event that it arrives tonight, I pull out my cellphone to make a call, but instead of the usual AT&T logo at the top, I see 'SIM not provisioned'. I believe that is what the people in the telecommunications field say in lieu of 'fuck you lol.' As it turns out, my bank hasn't been transferring money to pay off my cellphone bills for the past two months when I'm not in Madison, which led to AT&T cancelling my service. And the reason for my bank not transferring money is not completely clear to me. Sure, there's the tiny matter of my bank account not having any money, but apart from that it's completely flabbergasting to me.

So I make my way to the AT&T store, located shitmiles away from downtown, only to discover that I'm still unable to use my cards to pay that bill. My dad's transferred a sum of money to me, but it's stuck in my Savings account and not accessible to me. I decide to go to my bank first to have my Checkings account reopened, only to discover that they close at 1pm on Saturdays and slack off on Sundays. Is that what they teach them at Banking School, to let your customers down like that? Fine then, I'll settle it on Monday. Except I'm left with something like twenty dollars in cash, no way to withdraw any more, no way to tell any friends about it, and essentially standing in my last change of clothes.

I'm a strong person, I'd like to believe. Go on and take my clothes, my clean underwear, my money, my phone, take it all. I can live without all that frivolous nonsense. But an unforseen side effect to having my luggage delayed was that my Macbook charger was delayed with it. I squeeze the last 10 minutes of the available battery in a mad attempt to accomplish as much online as I can, and when my screen finally blacked out, I sat before my computer in a foggy daze. I am unable to comprehend this. I nudge it like Simba prodding Mufasa, willing it to come back to me.

I sit alone in the darkness of my new apartment, the evidence of moving-in cluttered around me like abandoned soldiers waiting to die on a battlefield. I wade around the myraid of cardboard boxes, refusing to acknowledge the irony of how I'm surrounded by the warmest winter coats money can buy, yet without the simplest of briefs I am unable to function.

I finally see the message I have been waiting for at 3am. The decision I asked for. Sleep was still deprived to me due to jet lag, and with bated breath and bloodshot eyes I read the few lines that finally did me in. After everything, I'm back to being single. The sense of relief I expected from no longer having to worry about whether or not this could survive did not come to me. Although I understood it, I still cried  harder than I ever had in my adult life. I cried for the memories, the disappointment, the lost possibilities, the fear, for everything that's gone wrong since my return. The deepest pain comes from knowing that I'm still loved, from knowing that I could have had it all if only the circumstances were different.

I love you, so goodbye.