Hope: Lost and Found

 I have this tradition with myself that I've managed to keep going for a few years now and this year it almost didn't happen.  Not because of a lack of money (although that really should've been the reason) or lack of time (hello Unemployment!) but for the simple reason that I didn't look hard enough.  

Now, this may seem a little uncharacteristic of me, being a person who self-identifies as frugal, but every year for my birthday and Christmas I like to buy myself a little piece of jewelry.  Nothing outrageously expensive but something that is special.  Something that I can look at years later and remember why I bought it and where I was in my life.  Also, since now I have a daughter, I like the idea of her one-day fishing through a box of my jewelry and laying claim to a piece because it will always remind her of me. 

This year, with the total upheaval of life, i.e. having a second baby, leaving my job and friends and family in Florida, starting a brand new life in a state I am only vaguely familiar with, etc...I wasn't about to let a little thing like money or blatant self-indulgence get in the way of buying myself a commemorative bauble of some kind.  

But what to get?  I wanted something to commemorate our moving to Rhode Island, this plucky little state with a personality I was only just beginning to break the surface of.  I looked at symbols of Rhode Island but I didn't need to look further than the anchor on the state flag and its bold motto: "Hope".  It was perfect.  It was hope that brought us here.  Hope that our kids would grow up in a safe town surrounded by families of all backgrounds.  It was our hope that I would find a new career that I could be passionate about.  It was our hope that Joe would be close to his family and have access to even more collaborators and artists.

Hope was the thing I had already, so I might as well have it in a gilded form.

Since money is a little tight I decided I would be stupid and use my Macy's card.  Fortunately, Macy's was having some crazy Black Friday sales and when I finally found the perfect thing (a small gold intricately detailed anchor pendant) I sucked in my breath and hit the Checkout button.

Days began to go by, and soon those days became weeks.  I waited impatiently for the pendant to arrive but instead was met with all the other Christmas packages we had ordered.  It had been so long in fact that I finally decided to check on my order status online.  I was perplexed and panicky when I read that the status was "Delivered".  I began searching through the boxes that arrived but all were too big to hold a tiny little gold pendant (except, of course, for the small box containing the Christmas ornament I had ordered for Joe).  I began studying the description of the delivery.  It said, "Delivered in front of the house."  I put on my sneakers at 9 p.m., slipped quietly out the front door, and began furiously digging around the leaves and twigs that buried my front porch, terrified it had been out here during all the rain and wind we'd been having.  I searched the muck and debris but there was no sign of it. 

Then a worse thought entered my brain.  What if it had been stolen?  It was a small package, it could have easily been concealed.  And although our neighbors were totally friendly, who's to say some "porch pirate" hadn't come along and pocketed it?  I was devastated.

Hope, my hope, was quite literally lost.

I was angry but more than anything I was worried.  Was this a sign?  I am a total sucker for signs from Fate and I felt like this was more than just the loss of a little pendant.  This was a sign that we made a mistake.  Maybe we picked the wrong house, the wrong town, hell, the wrong state.  What if we did all this, uprooted our whole lives, and it was a mistake!

I was still feeling these pangs of loss and anxiety when I sent a message through to Macy's to make a claim about the missing delivery.  I received a message quickly that they would refund my cost and in a matter of days my money was back in my account, but it was little consolation.

As Christmas was beginning to approach it was time to start sorting the gifts into piles for the kids and ourselves.  I placed the gifts for Joey and Mairin and Joe all into neat boxes so that when everything had arrived I could start wrapping.  I was just getting back to the house when I noticed we had another delivery.  A small box was left on our front porch.  My heart jumped at the sight, thinking maybe my pendant had finally made its way here, but my excitement quickly waned as I read who the sender was on the top right of the box.  So and So Crafters Lmtd., I read.  

Wait a minute, I thought.  That's the name of the company I ordered Joe's ornament from.

I suddenly rushed upstairs and pulled out the piles of boxes that had taken over my closet.  I began furiously digging out the stuff I had been saving for Joe and finally found the tiny box I had thought contained his ornament.  The top of the box didn't say Macy's either but I tore it open.  

And there it was, even in the dimness of the room, it glinted and shone.  My little anchor pendant.  I felt silly to be so happy but it felt like a transfusion.  The bolt I needed to reinvigorate my belief in this new life being a good decision for us.  For me.

I clutched the little pendant happily but then a realization popped in my head. 

Oh no, I told them it was missing!  They've already refunded my money!

I didn't know what to do.  I could just keep my mouth shut.  After all, it was already here.  And what was I going to do?  Report back to the heads at Macy's & Co. to tell them I was wrong and that it DID in fact arrive just as they said and to please reinstate the charges?  What kind of idiot would do that?

Well, this kind of idiot, I suppose.

I wrote back through the message center I had originally used and said exactly that.  To which, much to my surprise, I was given a message back of "Ok, we will take care of it."

To this day, as I write these months after Christmas, the charges have yet to be reinstated but whether they are or not isn't the point of the story.

It was the fact that I had let my hope for this town, and all the new and unfamiliar things inside it, hang on a tiny little gold anchor.  And when I thought it was gone, I let my hope falter.  I began questioning every part of this decision.  When all I really had to do was look.  Because hope was already here.

I just had to find it for myself.