Keys, Lost and Found

I lose things pretty frequently. I've lost some very expensive things; I'm better at keeping sentimental things, but not great. Over the past eight months or so, I've been training specifically to reduce losing things, and it's going pretty well. I also have Tile keychains attached to a few things to help keep track of them.

When I can't lay my hands on something, I panic. If I find it in 30 seconds, I'm fine. If it takes five minutes, I'm distressed but come down quickly. Over the five minute mark, I'm having a full-on anxiety attack. I'm also training to reduce this reaction, so I can look for things more thoughtfully rather than flailing about.

Last night, I got home and looked in my purse for my keys - couldn't find them. I pulled up the Tile app and found it had last seen them two months ago, which was absurd because I'd had them the night before. We have a keypad on the garage door, so I was able to get into the house, but I couldn't find my keys. I dumped my entire purse onto my bed - still no keys.

I messaged my boyfriend, because I'd been at his house the night before, and I'd used the keys then. He looked all over, but didn't find them. Naturally, by this point, my panic was going up. Thank goodness for him, though, because he not only helped me make a list of places I'd been and what was on my keyring, but he promised to help me file lost-and-found reports and helped soothe my anxiety. I looked through my purse again, and told my wife (through tears) that I couldn't find my keys.

I managed to get to sleep last night by distracting myself with other things, and with the thought that my keys might be at work. Upon arriving this morning, though, I had no luck, and started filling out lost-and-found forms online while my boyfriend started making phone calls. I considered catching the train up to his house, just to look for myself, because I had Schroedinger's Keychain - he'd looked for them thoroughly, and they weren't at his house, but they had to be at his house, because that's where I'd last had them.

I chatted with a co-worker about my missing keys, and said I'd probably look through my purse again, even though I'd already looked three times. When I dumped it again, onto my desk, I noticed an interior pocket that I never use. By now, you can tell where this is going: of course my keys were in that pocket. They'd been there all along, through the crying and panicking and discussing and reporting.

I filled out a customer support form for Tile, because the dead device is within a one-year warranty period. The other Tiles I got at the same time are doing just fine, so this one clearly has a fault. Go figure that I didn't notice it until two months later, when I needed it. I'll be checking the app once a week or so now, just to make sure all the Tiles are still working.

So...where's the personal development here? What have I learned? Last night, my boyfriend told me that most lost property is found, but at the time, I “just knew” mine wouldn't be. He told me people lose keys every day, losing things is human, but I still thought I was a bad person. I realized that what made me feel so terrible was taking up space in the world. I have a longtime habit of trying to be unobtrusive, but I was taking up his time, I was going to take up the time of the people at the places I'd reported to, I was going to take up the time of rekeying the places I have keys to and getting new keys...losing the keys wasn't just going to affect me, it was going to affect many people, and that is why I felt so terrible.

I'm trying to learn that it's okay to take up space in the world. It's okay to need help. It's a really hard thing to learn.

But not everything that is lost will always stay lost. That $5000 pair of hearing aids I lost in 2010…those are gone. But the keys were found. That time I couldn't find my purse at a sci-fi con - it turned up after much frenzied running around the hotel. When I thought I'd left my wedding rings at a karaoke place in Takadanobaba at 2am, and went back in a panic - they'd been in a hidden pocket of my purse all along. (Maybe I should stop having hidden pockets in my purse?)
The point is, I have lots of examples of losing things, having a panic attack and crying while I search for them, and then having them turn up. They really do keep turning up.

And if they don't, I guess nothing is irreplaceable. I knew what was on my keychain and could've replaced it. I know where my wife and I got our wedding rings, and I can replace them. I should keep a better listing of what's in my purse, but it's all replaceable (if expensive - Kindle, sunglasses, etc). There is an irreplaceable sentimental item in my purse, but I can mentally work on being okay with losing sentimental things, as long as I have my health. To distract myself last night, I looked at the news, and read about the KyoAni fire. Losing my keys is no great tragedy, there are much bigger problems out there.

Of course, all this is just trying to talk myself out of neurochemical incidents like a panic attack. But I've done it before. I'm training myself to handle some things better. Other times, the chemicals will go where they go. But losing something, whether it turns up or not, is not the end of the world.

originally written elsenet, July 2019