Sunglasses

It’s the little things, isn’t it … the small stuff that makes us crazy? Something catastrophic happens and you find resources inside yourself that you didn’t know you had: faith, friends, fundamental beliefs that pull you through. But the little stuff …

I lost my sunglasses on vacation. (Big deal you say? No, one of those small things.) I really need them though. Sunlight bothers my eyes. These were wonderful. And expensive. $50. Well, expensive for me anyway. They fit right over my glasses. The best part? I couldn’t lose them because they were so big. They didn’t get lost in my purse; they didn’t get lost in the car or the house. I always knew if they were in my hand or on the restaurant table. Great.

I’ve lost lots of those $10 glasses that you get at Walgreens. Probably hundreds of dollars worth over the years. So $50 wasn’t that much of a price to pay. And things went swimmingly for about 3 weeks.

Then I shared a day with the kids, and grandkids. Riding in my daughter’s car, shopping at a second-hand store, eating in a Mexican restaurant with much laughter and the added bonus of a blind musician playing an accordion. On to the park and then back home again.

Next day … Where are my sunglasses? Frantic search begins. This can’t be happening!! Check the purse, the car, the house, the purse again. Call my daughter. Nope, she hasn’t seen them. Check the purse … again. Where are they? They’re huge. Un-loseable. Go to the second-hand store and the Mexican restaurant. They haven’t seen them. If they were at the park they’re gone for sure because there are about 100 cars there for a party. Sigh.

We have to pack up to go home. I find an old pair of clip-ons in my purse … (where were they all this time?) Well, that’s good at least.

Home again. We decide to go to the Chinese restaurant for lunch. (We’re very international.) I’m still mumbling about the sunglasses. We get out of the car to go in and I’m putting away my cheap sunglasses as I’m saying, “It’s so weird that I lost those sun…..” And. Well, you can guess. There in my purse, where I’d searched at least 10 times (and no, it’s not big and there aren’t that many pockets, and these sunglasses are huge!!) There they are. It is dark in the purse and they are black … but, really?

This all makes me wonder. Truly, everything makes me wonder. But, this especially makes me wonder, not only about my brain’s functionality, but about what else I carry around that’s really important that I think I’ve lost or don’t even realize I have. Things like old friendships that would only take a phone call to reanimate or abilities that have languished for lack of use. Things taken for granted like family and freedom and faith.

Like having the biggest worry of my day being what happened to my sunglasses.