Losing my wallet

Up close and personal warning

Two nights ago*, in the wonderful bar in San Francisco I had several surreal experiences. Now, it is no surprise to anyone when I have a drunken story. After all, that is what most of my life has become. There is a tangent here but, let’s go on it. I have become defined by my drunkenness. Whether it was waking up in the hospital in Spain, or going for beer festival in Granada or having endless conversation with stranger in Portland. Once your stories are all about one thing: you start to reassess what that one thing means to you.

I want to start with this statement: I am not an alcoholic. I do however have an alcohol problem. My alcohol problem is as follows: I have over time lost interest in much other (fun things) than alcohol. This has made me isolated and full of regret. It is easy to put up a front in presence of others but when I am alone, I start to question my misguided notions of happiness. A few months ago, I had figured it out. I was truly and absolutely happy. All things in my life fell into place: contentment of self, my working relationships, my friendships. Everything was good.

Then, over a series of drunken mistakes I messed up the things that mattered to me the most: my working relationship and friendships. In time, I thought I could undo what had been done. Reverse time to fix everything. Now, I have started to believe that instead of trying to reverse time and go back to the way it was, it is time to move forward. If you constantly make the same mistake again and again, then don’t address the mistake. Find the pattern, break the pattern. Don’t constantly keep trying to go back to the way it was.

So, I lost my wallet.

How you ask?

Drunken Jyoti, Too much attention (from others), Cute bartender, Tequila shots.

Next morning, I wake up and do my usual check of phone, wallet and keys and heart sunk into my abdomen. It was as if I had been holding a crunch and my upper abdominal muscles wouldn’t relax. Fear followed by denial followed by fear rode through me. It’s 8 am: the bar is still closed.

Step 1: Freak out.

Step 2: Freak out more.

Step 3: Go through every inch of the bed to try and find wallet.

Step 4: Mentally curse yourself a million times

…

Step 41: Once cursing is over, start texting people.

Step 42: Talk to someone with steady head. In my case, it was my brother.

Step 43: Follow his advise and talk to Uber driver. No luck.

Step 44: Search the entire Airbnb apartment: kitchen, staircase, patio. No luck.

Step 45: Anger. How could I have been so stupid?

Step 46: Pretend to sleep but freak out more over texts with friends.

Step 50: Collect info of credit card, Ids and banks to report.

Step 53: Call the bar. Manager takes your info and tells you that he will contact you once he has spoken to bartender. YES, that VERY CUTE BARTENDER YOU FLIRTED WITH ALL NIGHT.

Step 57: You think of him, smile a little and then curse yourself for smiling. This is not a laughing matter.

Step 60: It’s almost 11. Hope is lost now. You start cancelling cards.

Step 65: Half an hour into your call with a bank, the manager from the bar calls to confirm that the wallet is not there.

In the midst of phone calls, you recall the Colosseum ticket in your wallet. What it meant to you then. The courage it had taken for you to go for the first time and the time after that and the time after that. You had kept it as a reminder for what you did that day. The day when you were really really sad in your heart. It had taken courage to even get out of bed, let alone make a memory.

To be able to tell yourself for the first time: you are enough and being broken isn’t a bad thing.

The memory after of all those selfies you took that reminded you how much you looked like your Papa in them. When the roman forum was closing, you were standing in the gardens among ruins. The absolutely gorgeous sky that was and how you decided to take a bus (to go and get beer). How the bus you took had taken you somewhere you didn’t expect (like so often). You walked as long as the bus ride as the sky melted away to darkness and had arrived at Open Baladin . The beer you had are a fuzz now, the bartender’s aloofness forgotten but that place’s business card had been in your wallet. It was the first time you had managed to drink alone at a bar. It was to remind you that fun is possible in solitude too. It was gone now. That reminder.

My wallet is not a wallet. My wallet is my story. It is a reminder of how I came to be to the moment I am in. It contains a picture of my sister and I on her last day in our then apartment. It contains pictures of me when I used to be a different person. Pictures of my soulmate to remind me that I was once loved so absolutely, so unconditionally and so purely.

Step 73: Dismay plunged into my heart. My cards had been cancelled and they would await me when I was back in Hong Kong. I might need to call them to remind them to not cut them before I returned.

Step 76: A great person had just texted me asking me out that night. I didn’t have it in me to reply yet.

Like my brother always says: When in doubt, go to sleep. In acceptance, in loss and in memory.

Step 80: Wake up, get fabulous and leave. Oh and of course say yes to the date.

Step 83: Find your wallet outside your door.

Joy. Relief. Close to tears. Laughter.

The universe had given me a second chance. God knows I didn’t deserve it. God knows I had fucked up so much. If I were a believer, I would have knelt and prayed. That moment might be the single best moment of my life. I checked my wallet. Everything is there. My life was still there.

Once I had my wallet back and I had taken the Uber (with my backup credit card), I started to reflect a little. All the events pointed to me having a drinking problem for one. For another, my constant need to keep going back to the past instead of moving forward. I had left Hong Kong 5 months ago but somehow, I expected it to be the same when I returned. I wasn’t the same so how could my friendships remain the same. Would I even have any friends left? Do I have anything left there to go back to?

Was I proud of the person I had become? No.

Was I proud of the person I was then? Yes.

So, the question becomes: who am I now and what do I want?

TBC

*27th January (monthly birthday?!)