Random Topic Generator: Losing and Then Finding Things

It’s frustrating, losing things. One minute you could be using something, you put it aside for another minute and when you turn to pick it up again, it’s gone; vanished into thin air. Something’s laying on the table, normally it’s a pen, and you accidentally knock it to the floor and you hear it clatter, sometimes you even watch it fall to the floor and know exactly where it’s gone, so you reach down to where you know it is, but it’s not there; disappeared into thin air. You can put something important into what is universally known as the “safe place” where you know where that place is, nothing will disturb it and you see that important thing every day, completely unaffected by your everyday activities, but when you need that important thing you go to that safe spot, and it’s nowhere to be seen; teleported to somewhere unknown and illogical.

It’s frustrating, losing things. You can search high and low, in every nook and cranny, turn the entire place upside down, finely comb through every draw, through all the stuff on your desk, but it’s as if it was never there in the first place. You imagine having it in your hand only moments ago, yet have no memory of where you put it except where you “know” it to be. The next step is backtracking through everything you’ve ever done over the last couple of days just in case that thing became effected in the crossfire of your other activities. The first thing you do is always look in the most obvious places, and the longer you spend looking, the less obvious the places become yet every time you think it could be there, it feels as if it should be there, even though it’s in the other room, or down the hall, or in some cases, in the freezer.

It’s frustrating, losing things. Of course, depending on how important that thing is determines how angry you are once it’s left. We never predetermine how angry we’re going to be if it lost, because we never imagine it gone until it’s actually gone. We make sure to have taken every possible step into making that thing the most secure thing in the entire building, and yet some unknown force has robbed you blindly; literally right from under your nose.

It’s such a relief when we find things. Yet, sometimes, it’s frustrating when we find things, too. We’ve gotten stressed, we’re tearing our hair out, our office or room is upside down, everything has been moved, and the thing we want has been staring at us all along, right under our noses. How do we not notice things? Depending on how important the thing is that we’ve lost determines how invisible it becomes when we’re looking for it, no matter where it is in the room or office. Our anger has switched from losing something to wondering why on Earth we couldn’t find it; we’re angry with ourselves.

It’s such a relief when we find things. We imagine how inconvenient and aggravating it will be if it’s never found again, and anger starts bubbling up inside you, usually teased with worry/guilt. If we find that thing during this period, we’re extremely relieved. We can push the anger back down and keep it there. We can fend off all the negative thoughts and but continue to imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t find it still, but from now on you can continue onwards feeling happy and relieved.

It’s such a relief when we find things. Depending on how important the thing you’ve lost is, the longer you take to look for it. After hours, days, maybe even weeks of looking for it – which is mainly consisting of combing over the same places about 40 times just in case you missed something, even though you’re certain you’ve looked in every crack possible; eventually you have to concede and admit it’s gone. You don’t know where, but it’s gone. Sometimes you try and trick the unknown force by not looking for it whilst continuing to look for it – carrying on with your everyday life without intentionally looking for the lost thing and hoping it would just appear in front of you at some point in the future, which is always a surprise. Once you’ve concede defeat, the unknown force has won and now it has the choice of giving it back when it’s ready and that could be at any point in the future – quite possibly even years down the line. You’ve moved on, adapted to not having it that you don’t need it anymore and so have naturally forgotten you even had it in the first place, and suddenly, it pops up, right there (annoyingly in the place you now remember putting all those years ago).

The late great comedian, George Carlin once said “I don’t like to lose anything, because where is it? See, basically, that’s the part that bothers me the most. I’m a practical guy; where is it?”

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)