Identity

I was looking for my luggage after I got off the bus. They told me that my belongings could be found next to the bus I was riding, and I waited until got off until everyone else stepped out, so that by default and process of elimination, it'd be fairly simple to find my bag; not that it'd be difficult to pick out a blood red and white duffel bag with "Budweiser" embroidered on both sides in a sea of brown corduroy suitcases. It was the only one. It was mine.

The group of nearly 300 people disbursed accordingly into different cabins. Skis and boards downstairs, and six people to a room upstairs. It was somewhat unusual to not see snow in a place we went to go snow skiing. Mountains in the distance had caps on them, but they seemed unreachable, and surely unskiable. We were staying in a village establishment where there were 10 cabins circling a "quad" like field. The premises were surrounded by four walls of forest and by the looks of things, we were the only humans for miles.

People immediately went outside to throw Frisbees, start a friendly softball competition, or pluck around on guitars. I didn't see my bag. I thought they told me it'd be right here: next to the bus. The undercarriage latches were open and I could see through to the other side. Nothing. Someone surely had taken it to my room. But where was my room? The cabins looked the same.

I began to wander around the quad asking some of the people if they had seen it. Everyone said no. "What did it look like?" they said. "Red and White with Budweiser on the side," I'd reply. "No, I haven't seen it. You should check the other buses." I already checked the other buses. They were empty.

I had my suspicions of who might have taken it. But I checked those rooms, and there were only brown corduroy bags. Brown bags in a brown carpeted rooms of brown oak bunk beds lining brown log cabin walls. What other color would a log cabin wall be? Regardless, no red. No white. No Budweiser. Who would have taken my bag? Who could do this? We were going to be at the establishment for five days. It wasn't like I had money in the bag. I just had my clothes. ALL of my clothes were in the bag.

I knew I shouldn't have brought the Budweiser bag. It's one of those things where the little girl in the red coat shows up in a crowd of shoulder to shoulder gray people. Someone had taken my little girl; my Budweiser.

I started checking trash cans. I looked inside of every trash can. I looked in every room of every cabin. I couldn't find my little girl. Someone had stolen all of my clothes. I didn't have any money in the bag, so whoever it was that is holding my bag ransom, would soon be disappointed because all they were getting was my thrift store fashion and my greasy hair product. Who wants that? Out of this group of Polo's, khaki shorts, flip flops, and sun tans, who would want my clothes? Who would choose my bag over their sturdy corduroy?

I saw my mom watching the softball game. "Mom," I said. "Where the hell is my bag? I paid $100 to go skiing and now someone stole my #@!*%$& clothes!" She didn't know where the bag was. I was losing my mind. I was ready to go back home. The sun was beating down on all of us. There wasn't any snow. I had no clothes. My only suitcase was missing. People were ignoring me and telling me to check the buses.

I was standing on what I thought to be my cabin's porch. I was sweating. I was on a ski trip, sweating in the sun. As the buses pulled away I saw a brown bag in the tall grass. I went over to check the tags. It was a brown bag, so I don't know why I would imagine that it belonged to me. My intuition told me to unzip the suitcase and check it's inner contents. So I did.

My clothes were in this bag. My jeans, my undershirts, my sweaters, my belt and my bathroom tote. They were all in this alien bag. This was not my little girl, but it was the red coat._____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I couldn't forget about this dream. It rattled me for hours. Why would someone take my suitcase? Why was my suitcase different than everyone Else's? Why did it have "Budweiser" on the sides? Why was I on a ski trip in a place with no snow? Why was I cursing at my mother?

The conclusion: The past few weeks, I've had a series of conversations about how I'm a person that doesn't really "reveal" my emotions. I go with the flow and choose not to be dramatic about situations. This apparently bothers people. Like I said, people have told me "I don't understand you," "I think you're mean," "I think you should let people know how you feel instead of just being 'honest' and hurting peoples' feelings." I started to think that I was doing something wrong by being honest with people. I started to believe that my laid back attitude was a hindrance to me getting to know people and investing in the lives of people who were important to me.

When it comes to people (women especially), I feel like I am very upfront with who I am and who I expect to be. I have learned to not make excuses for reasons of why I do things. I say things like "obviously, I have chosen not to do this because it wasn't high enough priority to me," or "I'm not going to make excuses. I made the decision to do this, the reasons don't matter because it was my desire to do it this way, and if you have a problem with it, I'm sorry." I feel like saying these things help people understand that I'm trying to be honest and NOT make excuses for things I do. People claim to appreciate honesty, but recently, I've been criticized for it.

My identity is in my honesty (my clothes inside of my bag). I feel like a foreigner when I talk to people about this, because so many people like to say what they think people want to hear rather than what people need to hear. Maybe this dream represents this battle. Maybe my confidence in my identity is so different and poignant that it seems like everyone else is different than me, but the same as each other (my Budweiser bag to their corduroy bags). When someone stole my bag, it was brought to my attention that people have made me feel like I need to conform to living a different way. When my identity showed up in a different casing, it was clear to me that this dream was deeper than originally thought. Or maybe I just like Budweiser...and so do other people, and they wanted my bag. I'm starting to feel like I just wrote too much.