Don't Make This Mistake

Anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) knows that I never pass up an opportunity to get existential.
I can take the smallest thing in life and turn it into a reason for something else.



I'm also going to be incredibly melodramatic in this post - but this is what happens when I am upset.  In a few hours I will be embarrassed that this post exists.



This morning I woke up at 7:30, showered, and Skyped with Emmilly and Chris. It was lovely.
Then I went to the eye doctor. I had my pupils dilated, and waited for the doctor, doctor tells me my eyes are perfect and to come back in 3 years or unless something happens.
We stop back at my house, and my mom drives me to Jones Beach to meet up with Amanda and Mary Kate.
On the way, I put on my sunglasses because my eyes are dilated and I didn't want to go blind.
Get to the beach, have a sit, we talk, and Amanda and I go down to the water. I kept my sunglasses on because my eyes were dilated and it was sunny and bright.
Waves were really big, really scary, and there was no one place to stand where a big one would not hit you. So we got out.
Then we sat more. Then got hot. Then the three of us trekked down to the water again.
I had my sunglasses on still.

Listen, I've worn my sunglasses in the ocean plenty of times. Like, at least 20 times.
But for some reason, this time, two huge waves in a row crested and crashed onto my head. In my efforts not to drown or get dragged under and choking up sea water, I didn't even register that my sunglasses had been blown off my face.
At least not until I was like, why is it so bright all of a sudden?
I mean, the 2nd of the two waves dragged me at least 15 feet. I can't tell you if the glasses were blown off after the first wave hit or the second wave hit.

What I can tell you is that my sunglasses, my mirrored aviators, my favorite pair of sunglasses ever, are gone.
Amanda and Mary Kate searched for them in the deeper water for a bit while I checked if they washed up. They went to sit down and I stood there for another 10 minutes waiting for them to wash up and trying to find them in the waves.

I got these sunglasses at a street market in Greenwich Village in NYC in the summer of 2007. Aviators weren't even a popular style of sunglasses yet, and the mirrored lenses were unheard of. I didn't have enough cash so Amy bought them for me as an early birthday present.

The right lens had a big scratch on it from when I was going into Carvin at Hollins and dropped them trying to get my keys. They landed lens front first onto the concrete and scratched permanently.
Emily G gave me the nickname of "The Aviator" for our groups youtube channel. 
In my last pottery class at Hollins, when we had to make busts of ourselves, I custom fit pieces of my clay-face and clay-hair so that these particular aviators could be worn by the clay bust of myself. Because these glasses were me.


Those glasses came with me to London, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Budapest, Australia, and New Zealand. I wore them nearly every time I went outside.
They were big enough lenses that when I put them on, everything was dark, no edges and no gradation of color. The frames were wide enough that they NEVER hurt my ears or my skull or my jaw muscles.
I could put those things on and STARE at people and they'd never know.
I played the "where am I looking?" game with pretty much everyone at some point.

Today was the first time I unpacked them from my carry-on after coming back from Australia - having found them in the case after thinking I'd lost them in Indro or something before I left.
Now I lost them in the ocean.

I wonder if anyone will find them. If they do they won't know that those glasses have been to Budapest, or that a lens fully popped out while waiting for the ferry boat to take us to Loch Ness. To them they will just be a sandy, broken pair of cheap aviators with or without lenses or sides or any parts to make them functional again.

I absolutely hate losing things - and I lose things all the time - but it depresses and angers me to the point of puking when I lose things irreplaceable and knowing that they will never turn up.
It's one thing to lose your keys (you'll find them) or phone (just call it), but another thing entirely to lose something in the ocean. They gone. They gone fo real.
It's my own fault too, I shouldn't have been wearing them. But honestly - wearing them they were such a part of me and how I exist that I didn't even think about it. They weren't separate from my face. You wouldn't tell me to leave my face behind with the towels to keep it safe would you?

I know that if Amanda had said, Sarah you should keep your glasses with your stuff, I would've said, no they'll be okay, it was okay earlier when we were in the water.

I wish I had switched to my new heart sunglasses Amanda bought me, because those I could've bought new ones.
These I can never have again.
I don't think I'll ever find a pair that fits my face so well while also being perfect mirrors to block where I'm looking or to have a lovely mirror for a friend to check their hair or makeup or as happened today - Amanda checked to see if her sunscreen was rubbed in on her face - in my mirrored glasses.

Now how does a person make this existential?
I followed my gut when I was looking for them in the water. I was standing there begging for them to wash up or for me to see a piece of them or SOME sign of them. I know I might have found them if I had gone back out to where the waves were forming - but I was too scared of being choked and dragged again - especially if my attention was directed at digging around with my feet in the sand while my shoulders and head were just above the surface.

I knew once I walked away from the water I would be accepting that I'd never see them again.
I'd be accepting that the little piece of stability I always had during all my travels and all of my life experiences since high school were now somewhere in the Atlantic. It kills me.

But maybe this is a test.
I have always been abnormally attached to things. It scares and annoys me some times how I can't just throw or give something away.
Recently I've been faced with losing a whole lot of irreplaceable things, and it's completely out of my control just like these waves today were.
It was in my control to take my glasses off, it was in my control to have grabbed the glasses off my face and risked drowning in exchange for not losing them. It was in my control to stand on that beach and in the water just not being able to walk away until the slim chance they came up with high tide. I could've chosen not to go to the beach after my doctor's appointment.
But I don't have the control of time, I don't have control over my instincts, and I don't have control over when things decide to change.

There is absolutely nothing comparable at all to the death of a person close to you and loss of their future and your future with them. There are just certain moments in life where everything plateaus and then its like, bam. Nothing will be how it was again. ever.
I know that in the not-so-distant future I will be leaving a lot of things irreplaceable to me.
Things that I would only want to leave behind with my death and no sooner are going to be gone.

So I think this is a test.
I have lost objects that have meant this much to me before - but they have turned up somewhere at some point. If they didn't, I've thankfully repressed the memory I guess.
I lost my first iPod, but I still physically own it - it just won't ever turn on again.
That's not the same as an ocean wave crashing on your head and pulling them off and then burying them in sand until they biodegrade (if they ever do).
I can walk away from this - because I allowed myself to leave the beach today without them. How I feel in this moment is pathetic, I wish I was not so attached to these things. I wish I could live the rest of my life being able to give things away, sell things, or have them taken from me without being phased.

As of this moment all I can say is for you all to not wear your sunglasses in the ocean - even if leaving them behind on the towel could damage your eyes and loss of SIGHT would be infinitely worse than a pair of sunglasses.
Re-evaluate your attachments. Realize that everything we have is liquid. Everything we have is relative and fragile and out of control. At any moment something and someone cherished can vanish. 

It's best to prepare yourself for that somehow.

No Time Like the Present

So I am officially out of Australia for the near to immediate future. It makes me sad. Half because I liked it, half because I will miss it.
In the past 24 hours, I have slept maybe a grand total of 4 hours.

I am so scatter brained. I'm just gonna list things that come to my head. I'm sleep deprived.

I left Brisbane at 6:45 pm yesterday. Which is Australian time. Landed in Auckland at 11:25 pm NZ time, which is 2 hours ahead of Brisbane, so 16 hours ahead of NY instead of 14.
I found a nice spot to nest in for a while once I picked up my luggage, which I ended up having to check both bags and pay for the extra, which I knew would happen.

In Brisbane airport the Qantas woman was very accomodating on helping me find loopholes for it. The big suitcase was $30 because it was overweight by 2 kilograms and its $15/kg over 30kg. The second bag could only be 10kg, with $15/kg on every other kg - so this one carry-on sized suitcase was gonna be effin $285. and I was like hail to the nah. So the woman told me to run over to the bag wrap people, buy a canvas bag and put all the heavy shit in it (she didnt say shit) and use that as my carryon and then try to get the other checked bag down a bit. I ended up not having to buy a canvas bag bc I already had one that I bought in target in aus. But I digress.
Then she didn't weight my cabin baggage even though there was a limit. So she was great.

checking in the air new zealand today, the first guy I went to was super nice, he was Japanese and liked me from the start because I took my passport out of the passport holder before I gave it to him and he had a nice little rant about how people just hand him their whole wallet sometimes. So I was on his good side.
Then the charge for a second bag was $200 NZ, which is like $160 US tops. $159.74, just googled it. Then since my big bag was overweight, it would be ANOTHER $200 for the overweight, so he was like you are gonna go over there by the scale and repack, go now! and so I went.

Took out a bunch of shit. threw out a few things. RIP flip flops, sunscreen, moisturizers, and $9 walmart jeans. Bye bye. So I got my carry on literally stuffed full, 20.8 kg out of 23, and then the big bag went down to 23.9 so she let it go through :) I like people.
Then she had to weigh my carry on luggage, which both pieces had to add up to 10kg, and they were 14, so I had to shove MORE stuff into the already full carry on. It is a good thing I put it in the fragile area because the seams are so stretched. I'm done with weighing bags now. I'm just hoping I don't have to go through security again in the US (but I will have to who am I kidding) and I'm hoping they don't confiscate any of my food. The TSA can never be as nice as the NZ customs people were though.

So I landed in Auckland and found a long booth in the food court, set up my trolley next to me and put my other 2 bags under the table, took out my laptop bc i was right next to a plug (as I am right now) and got on mcdonalds free wifi after the free 30 mins from auckland airport expired. I was getting tired, and I did lay down and try to sleep but it was too bright, I was too paranoid about my bags, I couldn't get comfortable, and I was really hot, and people were being loud and it was starting to get crowded, so while I laid there and semi-relaxed for like 30 mins, I didn't actually sleep at all.

Until the luggage storage place opened, so it was like 6am, and I put both my suitcases and my backpack in storage for 8 hours. Then I went up to the top floor sky deck and it was nearly empty and with long rows of cushy leather seats. I laid on one in the corner with my head on my bag and got a decent 2 hour nap.

I left the airport on the express bus to the city at 10am. I got into the city and walked around and saw some stuff. I was in the real center of everything I guess, so it wasn't much different content wise from Brisbane CBD, but it was open and non-claustrophobic and full of docklands like Melbourne.
The souvenirs here are SO COOL but I wasn't here long enough to merit anything. I did get a shot glass though bc it had to happen. My intent was to save a dollar coin bc it has the kiwi bird on it, but I had to spend it at lunch so now I have a 20 cent coin that looks like our dime and has Maori symbols on it. A lot of the souvenirs are Maori inspired actually. It would be like walking into a US souvenir store and having nearly everything made by or designed by Native Americans. Wouldn't happen anywhere but where they have reserves basically. I'd love to go to New Mexico and see my family there and then get a lot of Native American stuff lol.

I only have five minutes of wifi left that I had to pay for. I'm gonna have to see if theres a McDonalds near the gates. I'll be giving up a nice spot on my own little couch with table and plug though. Meh. I can watch itunes vids or write or something I guess....maybe work on that Sydney blog :P

I feel like I've accomplished something, even though I know that Ive only been going through all of this preparation and waiting just to sit on a plane for 12 hours.
but I know that a bulk of that time will be sleeping because I have a WINDOW SEAT. I CAN LEAN MY HEAD ON THE WALL. sure it'll vibrate and it'll drive me crazy......but I'm exhausted. I just want to collapse into a hotel room double bed with cold sheets and the ac on and two pillows and i can sleep diagonally and not wake up until we have to.

speaking of breakfast, I had a BLT bagel from Mcdonalds here for Mcds breakfast and it was SO GOOD. we need those in the US. I looked at the menu and saw a pic of something with lettuce and I was like yay a non-breakfast food! and then it was a BLT which is literally the most glorious combination of food.
it's like, PBJ, BLT, Smores....carrots and ranch....yep. hierarchy of good food combos.

My plan for the US is to get a Moes burrito for lunch, a Chipotle bowl for dinner, and then fourth meal from Taco Bell.
This is all I can think about. I will go INSANE if there is a mexican fast food anything in San francisco airport.

anyway.

TTFN