Sometime during the events of Halloween night, I lost track of my purse. It’s still out there somewhere, in the back of a long-lost Uber, on the side of a lone curb, who knows. I haven’t found it, and I doubt I will. It is lost to the sands of time, and with that fact has come considerable grief on my part.

I loved that purse. It was brown and oblong in the chicest way, tucked under an arm or swinging at the elbow. My sister had decorated it with ribbons before I “borrowed” it from her one day and never gave it back. In my defense, it fit my aesthetic better than hers. The purse traveled with me 16,000 miles across the country, carrying all manner of roadside treasures. A matchbox from Los Angeles, a pebble from the Tetons, snail shells from the deepest Colorado canyon, parking passes from the Black Hills. All gone.

My wallet is another emotional loss. It was my favorite shade of purple, purchased four years ago in a shop seconds before it closed. It had bumblebees imprinted in the leather.

I was stuck on all these pieces of my history, enormously sad, for about 20 minutes before I came to my senses and remembered the contents of said wallet. Oh my – my credit card. My driver’s license. My press pass. I called my bank, did the necessary housekeeping. The DMV and all its joys await me.

But really, I’m mourning my other wallet novelties more. I’ve lost the student ID I carried for the six months I lived in Paris, and my Sorbonne library card, gone with it. My supermarket discount card from North Creek, where I toiled on forest trails for a summer, is another casualty. My covid vaccination card, and the little slip I got when I passed my hunter education course at age 15, are the oldest relics lost.

There are other items to pay homage to, while I’m on this sentimental jag. My grandmother gave me her miniature, flower-adorned pillbox when I was too young to own a purse, and I kept it on my dresser through adolescence. I remember the day I first added it to my day-to-day equipage. It crossed oceans with me. Its contents cured many an ailment. But worst of all, my notebook is gone. It was months of musings, drawings, lists, scribbles. It had a little red pen that fit so perfectly beside it. Man, I miss it.

Most everything else is replaceable. My favorite perfume, my lip products, even my headphones are easily acquired. Soon, I will be re-equipped.

But I worry about her, my lovely purse, all alone out there. She must be scared.

I’m reminded of a fairytale I loved in childhood called “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” In it, the titular toy soldier falls from a little boy’s window and is washed away into the gutter, swallowed by a fish and made to endure terrible trials. Perhaps the contents of my purse have spilled out and embarked on journeys of their own. I cannot tell you if this makes me feel better or worse. But, when objects are lost, their lives are not necessarily over. Neither is mine. Our paths have simply diverged.

By some great stroke of luck, I forgot my keys Halloween night. I came home and found them sitting on my bookcase, with no purse to return to. It made me laugh. What a paradoxical tragicomedy. Losses and wins. Whatever has become of my purse, I suppose I wish it all the best. Me and my keys will continue on without it.