A missing box

I graduate in less than 48 hours.

Right before I started law school, I sent a box of my things from my friend's place in Stanford to my new dorm address in DC. It was stuff I had left at his place on the way back to Hong Kong right after college, knowing I would be back in a year to start at Georgetown. I sent it media mail, because that is really the only affordable way to send anything of any significant weight, and it was, mostly, media: my favorite history books from college, including The Search for Modern China, and my DVD collection, including the first four seasons of The West Wing. I cheated a bit by also throwing in a light French Connection jacket.

When I got to DC, the box hadn't arrived at my dorm. A week later, it still hadn't arrived. Another week later, still nothing. Maybe most frustrating was that I had actually ordered delivery confirmation, and the online record showed that it had been delivered, but to a slightly different zipcode. So I then went on a scavenger hunt around the various post offices in the area, trying to figure out where in this craziness my box had gone. Each post office would refer me to another. Thinking I might have written the wrong address, I went to each building with an address that resembled my dorm's. Nothing. I even hung around my dorm waiting for the mailman to arrive, to ask him personally if he remembered such a box. I seem to remember him saying he seemed to remember. Useless.

Because it wasn't insured, the only thing I ever got from USPS was a check for about $15 for lost mail. I was in regular contact with some USPS not-so-higher-up who said she was bringing it up at her weekly meeting but to no avail. And then I took a break from school, and this clearly fell off my radar. But I did make a couple more attempts when I came back another year later. Nothing, of course.

It grates at me just to think about it again. It's like this tiny, insignificant knot inside my stomach that is nevertheless a knot and can't ever be untied. Because I just can't imagine what the hell has gone on with my stuff in that box. Could it really just have gotten lost and thrown away at some point? With all that stuff in it? Or is someone sitting at home right now with my books on his coffee table, along with his feet, resting on a couch watching my DVDs, while wearing my jacket?

There were lots of pirated DVDs in there, I admit (The West Wing ones were real, I swear). And I sent it media mail even though there was a jacket thrown in. But is this really fair punishment for that? I haven't thought about it for a long time, but when I do, it has this way of making my life incomplete.

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A friend once wrote a short piece about a coin she found, musing about all the places it could have traveled to end up in her pocket. It was so hopeful, so happy, like the feather in Forrest Gump floating along to that nostalgic theme music.

This is kind of like that. Only the opposite.