It was a little past noon on a sunny tuesday in the last week of october that year. I was standing in the half opened doorway of my new apartment. This one bedroom on the second floor of the nice complex facing the elementary school in the upscale neighborhood north of the university where I work. I moved in just a little over three weeks ago and i didn't even finish unpacking yet. The door was not really opened but rather hanging, or what is left of it, from its squeaking semi-attached hinges and leaning on the scratched wall. Scrapes of wood and pieces of dry paint covered the floor infront of my feet announcing the inevitable fact I was deliberately trying to block my mind from realizing it and failing miserably. I was robbed.
My heart started racing in those fractions of a second that my line of sight took in the journey from the floor to the living room table. It was this short wooden table I bought for cheap from a used-furniture store downtown. The table itself was of no real financial or sentimental value but rather what was usually placed on it. A quick sharp stab struck my heart as I saw the space that my laptop has left behind, it was gone.
Some call it the bond between man and machine. Some call it this familiarity you feel sitting in your favorite chair or the sadness that finds its way to your heart while selling your first car. Maybe it was an ugly beat-up car, but it was yours and it witnessed your memories with you. You remember the first time you drove it and the first dent you got on it. The first time you picked up a date from her house and how impressed she was. You remember the times it broke down and your friends helping you to push it back to your parents house while cursing at you. This was how I felt seeing that my old laptop was missing.
A bitter smile forced its way to my face along with a deep boiling sigh as I talked to the ghost of my missing laptop:
" Oh my dear friend, three years of travelling around the world and thousands of hits and falls didn't get the best of you and this is how it ends?"
A quick look to the other side of the room confirmed my doubts, my brand new laptop was gone as well. Surprisingly I didn't care much for the new one being gone. Feeling both violated and ripped off my memories I sat on the couch then I realized i have to call the police.
For days I was sad, angry and confused. All the projects, pictures from travels, pictures of friends, family and my kitten were gone. My friend Moustafa told me those pictures and memories are not gone, they are here and here while pointing at my head and chest. "They will be there forever and no one can rip them off of you", he added.
He was right, and once I realized that, the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler's five stages of grief flew by quickly. I was in denial, "No No I was not robbed, someone is just playing a prank on me". Then there was the anger, "Who would dare invade my home and take my stuff?! I will beat the crap out of them!". The bargaining came after that, "Ok take those laptops but give me back the hard drive to take the photos and memories, I will pay you!". The depression followed, "I will never get those memories back". And finally the acceptance, "You are right Moustafa, they will never take those memories from me....and I will make some more memories".
This incident was one of the first things that encouraged me to start this blog. So maybe this roberry was a good thing after all.
18 Jan 2012
