Five come home

My luggage came home this afternoon. Finally.

Nigel and I went out for lunch and when we got home the first thing I did was go to check the website for baggage tracing (a screenshot from which I included in my post “Five go missing”). I was just clicking on the link for flight information to see if there were any changes when the Air New Zealand baggage services people rang to confim delivery address. The taxi would be here in two hours, she said.

In fact, it was more like three. On the whole, things arrived okay, despite the ordeal. Only one item was broken, and some artwork was slightly crushed, both in bags that the TSA opened (they take no care in putting things back well). The bags themselves were definitely worse for wear, but the main thing is that they arrived at all.

I was beginning to fear the worst, and I kept thinking about all sorts of things that would be gone if the bags didn't show up. I thought first about the clothes I'd brought with me, including most of my underwear, socks and long-sleeved shirts. I wasn't sure how long I could hold out before having to buy some new clothes, underwear at least.

Then I thought about the things I'd bought, some fun things for Nigel, Jake and me, but mostly a lot of clothes, the majority for me. I absolutely hate clothes shopping, but I bought quite a bit, which is very unusual. As an aside, the clothes weren't really any cheaper than in NZ, apart from bulk packs of socks or underwear, but I knew the shirts I bought wouldn't be commonly worn in New Zealand. Blue jeans were a lot cheaper, with a major American brand costing me less than half the price of Farmers' house brand, which isn't all that great. I bought three pairs.

And that leaves the stuff I brought back from storage in Chicago. Nearly everything has no cash value, as far as I know, just sentimental value for me—things like souvenirs of trips, things I wrote over the years, that sort of thing. But all of it was irreplaceable, which made it all of great value to me.

I don't mind saying that I was feeling literally sick at the thought it could be all gone. I thought about the thousands I'd spent on the trip, my purchases and extra baggage charges and at the end of it had less than when I left. My main feeling, though, was one of numbness.

In Chicago, I'd spent hours going through things, sorting the wheat from the chaff, then sorting the wheat again and again (because I had weight limits). In the end, I took only a small portion of what I planned on taking, focusing mostly on the things that had personal meaning to me, resonance with my life, rather than just things of my parents that I remembered fondly and nostalgically. There's some of that, too, but it was the stuff with the deeper personal connection I kept.

I knew that I'd feel better once I got away from Chicago and the stuff I left behind—out of sight, out of mind, and all that. And, a day or so later, I was right. It was a weird feeling once it was over. Now, it's weirder still.

For twelve years, I've held off buying books or CDs because I thought to myself, “I have that in Chicago”. Now, if it's not here, I don't have it. Clearly if I didn't have something for 12 years I don't really need it, but that's not really the point. There was always this restraint on my life, a bit like a dog chained up in a yard, allowing me to go a certain distance and no farther. Humans give us connections, but they move around. My stuff didn't, and so it was like an anchor or weight preventing me from moving forward.

So this afternoon I unpacked all my suitcases and started washing all the clothes in them (don't ask; I just need to wash it all, especially in the bags the TSA opened). Actually, I didn't unpack so much as empty the suitcases and pile up the stuff to put away later, but the effect is the same. I said to Nigel, “Now, everything I own in the world is here.” That's never been true before.

In some ways, I feel liberated and released. But what's weird is that the backdrop for over twelve years—that I had stuff stored in Chicago—is now gone. I'll have to learn a new reality now.

In this now completed tale, there are things that made this more difficult than it needed to be—Air New Zealand, United Airlines and Allied Van Lines all failed me, the last two pretty spectacularly. But that's a subject for another day. Right now, I want to just relax now that everything I own, and everything I am, are in the same place for the first time in a dozen years.

I can definitely get used to this.