My Golden Calf

My backpack was stolen yesterday during a work outing. We were given permission to leave the office at 3:00 as our semiannual teambuilding activity, though our only plan was to have happy hour to say goodbye to a social worker whose last day it was. There was almost no one in the place, but when I went to leave at 5:20 PM, my backpack was no longer next to me.

In it was:

my work ID and keys
my planner with all my work and personal events, which are not recorded anywhere else
my iPod Nano that I just got from Nicole for Hanukkah a few months ago
my Kindle that I got from Nicole for Christmas several years ago
my book "She's Not the Man I Married: Life with my Transgender Husband"
my URJ magazine folded back to an article I wanted to discuss with my rabbi
my notebook where I have kept notes since my first day of Intro to Judaism class October 25
my latest unread People and Entertainment Weekly magazines
handouts from my Intro class - all of them
a photocopy of a handwritten letter from a 7-year-old client that I've just carried around because it reminds me of why I do the work I do

And maybe most sadly, a handwritten transliteration of the Shehecheyanu my rabbi wrote down for me last week for me to memorize for the mikvah - so treasured, because she's basically a rock star to me, that I jokingly told my friend Allyson that I wanted to make a conversion scrapbook just as a reason to keep it. And no, asking her to write it down again would not at all be the same.

I panicked and then I cried. I was so upset that someone could do something like that, and felt lost without my stuff. (Though I was very lucky to have moved my wallet and housekeys from my backpack to my coat pocket earlier that very day.) Losing the expensive items sucked.  I don't have the money to replace my iPod anytime soon, and I know I will never prioritize buying another Kindle. I've learned I much prefer actual books, though I love the Kindle for travel (great not to have to pack several books when I don't know how many I will get through) and have appreciated having it precisely because I knew I wouldn't have another one after it dies.

But those weren't even the most upsetting things. Without my planner, I am going to feel so lost on Monday; where am I supposed to be, and how much trouble will I be in if I'm not there?? Chaos! And my Jewish class items. Everything I have written and collected since class began, including from events at my own synagogue.

I was rushing twenty blocks uptown for a classmate's conversion ceremony, and Allyson took the cab with me. She kept saying falsely optimistic things like, "Maybe it will turn up later and they'll call you." Then outside the synagogue, she hugged me and said, "I don't know if this is insensitive to say, but you know, they ARE just things." I said, "Actually, that's the most reassuring thing you've said this whole time."

Was my life and my health and everything important to me in that backpack? Of course not. How silly to feel such panic over it, to feel so unmoored. I know that it's a natural feeling in response to such a violation and loss, and I'm not criticizing myself for feeling it, just bringing back some perspective.

My staff and colleagues and old emails will help me fill in the blanks with what I'm supposed to be doing at work over the next few weeks, and the world won't end if I miss a few. And my Jewish identity is not wrapped up in handouts and notes and special tokens - I'm pretty sure I'm going to be Jewish next Friday with or without them.

Idols, all of these things. I won't be quite so dramatic as to say I worshipped them, but I certainly placed more value on them than I should have, and maybe that's essentially the same thing. Losing them does not change who I am, and in fact, it's a pretty damn good reminder of what's really important. My skills and passion as a social worker are not contained within a planner of carefully maneuvered nonstop appointments. My sense of being (almost) a Jew is just as much in my head and my heart as it ever was; I don't need paper crutches to reassure myself, to feel like a prepared student trying to pass an exam. I'm still here and I'm still me. I don't NEED this stuff. Stuff is not life.

But I sure do miss my pretty purple iPod.