After a week of squinting and reading the stories with the largest pictures, I bought a replacement pair of glasses. The morning the call came to pick them up, the old ones appeared miraculously, sliding out from under a car seat that had been checked a dozen times.
The spare pair now join my spare phone from the week before. It went missing at the cottage and we tore the place inside out. It was lost with a full charge, but went immediately to voicemail when it was called. There were a string of petty thefts in the area, so we eventually agreed we'd been hit and trekked to the city for a new phone. The night my teenaged nephew programmed the new phone, an odd chirp could be heard in the living room at intervals of about every 25 minutes. Hours of waiting to hear it again and trying to isolate the location (and piling all possible electronic sound emitting devices at the other side of the cottage) eventually revealed the old phone wedged deeply in the couch - telling us the battery was now low.
In the three weeks since turning 45 I have also lost and found a ring and a treasured watch. It seems I'm infusing everything I touch with disappearing ink.
Is this a product of middle age? Distraction? Confusion? Simply having too much stuff? All of the above? Regardless, it's clear I'm losing it.
Earlier this spring I lost my college ring and an irreplacable gift.
Shortly before this lost-and-sometimes-found streak started, a central joy in my life chose to lose me. I've tried every kind of pleading, invitation and apology to encourage her to reappear.
Friends and family say to give it time. I start every day hoping this will be the one where it hurts just a little less.
That day has yet to dawn.
Glasses, phones, jewelery, credit cards and car keys can be replaced.
She can't.