It was not there.

It was not there.

It was not there!

IT WAS NOT THERE!!!

Slowly, I tried to breathe calmly, but my anxiety took hold. Then in a swift moment of fanatic frantic-ism, I pulled everything off my shelves and shuffled through everything, shaking my books in hopes that it will fall out from the pages. Where is that blue—

Oh maybe it was in my bags of papers. I got my bags and emptied them out on the floor. The knot grew in my throat even as I noticed papers that had gone missing.

I looked up at Chris who was leaving for the post office in near desperation. He assured me, “When I come back, I’ll help you look for it.”

As he left, I swooped through my room. One by one, I checked each of my books and tossed them out into the hallway. Then I cleared the floor, tossing all the junk back into the hallway. I grabbed my empty bags, checked all the pockets, unzipped the zippers, shook them and threw them in the hallway.

It was not there.

I looked under my bed blindly reaching in the darkness. Then I looked through my file folder of important documents, searching, shuffling through the papers, willing to give myself a paper cut.

I was frantic. Twenty minutes had passed and he had not returned. I was getting irritated. Why wasn’t he back yet? He said he just needed to mail something! Then I realized that my displeasure was misplaced. He couldn’t come in and make everything all right. It was missing! It was my fault! He could only do as much as I could do. Why was I being dependent?

I continued, looking through every inch of my room, threatening myself for being so idiotic. At one point, I realized that I may have left it at a firm. Could I have been that stupid? Then checking my calendar, I realized that I may even have brought it to a place that I was volunteering at…that day. But I recall being super careful. How could I? What would I give for something not to be missing?

It was not there!

He finally came back and instructed me to go through everything. I would take the inside. Outside in the hallway, he organized everything into stacks. The checked and the not checked. My anxiety was high so I made a large pile of things checked and another large pile of things unchecked.

At one point, he reached into my shelf and found it. My passport.

“Um, wasn’t that the first place you checked?” he asked as I hugged him in relief.