RELATIONSHIPS | LIFE

Memoirs From A Go-Bag

The skeletons in my closet are fragments in time

There is a bag that sits in the bottom of my closet.

An old, worn leather duffel. It is scratched, faded, and patched in places. It has an essence to it, as though it has absorbed all the exhaustions and exuberances of a time gone by, so that should a living gaze fall upon it the aura of general fatigue will elicit a sigh.

This is my go-bag.

It holds the trinkets that are the testament to the past, and the documents that declare the details of my existence only the government and insurance companies would deem as particularly pertinent.

The bag itself first came into my possession when I was about eight years old.

Following some slight that had once again prompted uncomfortable questions from those outside our family home, I was once again getting the old, familiar lecture.

They won’t understand. They’ll come in and take you away from us. You’ll be taken away and never see your family again. You have to think about these things. You have to be more careful.

Snippets of a running monologue, faded in and out of clarity as I stared out the car window, observing the world outside as though it were an optical illusion. The fence posts along the road were clear and easily defined when looking ahead, but blurring together if I allowed my focus to shift to the periphery.

Why it was this particular lecture on this particular day that stuck, I have no idea. Perhaps it was the fence posts trying to teach me that clarity only exists in looking ahead, perhaps it was simply the repetition that made the threat seem inevitable.

For whatever reason, I lay in bed later that evening imagining a scenario where some big bad people came in the middle of the night and took me away.

Would I be able to take my toy dog, Barf? What about my jumper? The one that had been bought brand new, just for me by my Aunt?

Clearly, this needed some planning. Best not to risk these things.

Sneaking out to the garage, I carefully opened the old doors to the storage cupboard. It held all manner of things not needed in day-to-day life. Items that may have some future need — spare blankets and towels, ropes, miscellaneous tools, paint tins, and leftovers from DIY projects. More importantly, to my current objectives, all the suitcases and bags that had been accumulated over unknown lifetimes for unknown trips.

I needed something the right size, something I could grab and carry easily, it also needed to be easy to hide and stash away somewhere.

Not the hard suitcases, too big and bulky.

Not the old purses that smelt like mothballs, too small and possibly moldy.

My eyes landed on a leather duffel, soft, squishy, a little old but it had both handles and a strap. Bonus points for being in a position I felt like I could reach in the wardrobe. That would do!

I carefully maneuvered it out of the stacks and piles of bags, taking it back to my room and packing the things I would need if I was to suddenly need to, well, go.

The go-bag was born.

For years it sat under my bed, items removed or added as my favourite things changed. Toys and books were swapped out and replaced, and comfort items were added as I acquired new clothes or grew out of old favourites, awards from school, or photos of happy memories carefully tucked away. It was a sense of safety and security, a knowledge that any item I cherished could be easily located, and grabbed in a rush.

Then, when I was thirteen, I ran away from home with nothing other than the clothes on my back, a $10 bill, and the items in my go-bag.

We’ve been through a lot together, this bag and me.

It was a pillow on nights when I was sleeping rough and needed a place to rest my head.

It was both a weapon and a shield, although the effectiveness of either was rather dependent on the contents. I quickly came to appreciate the sheer shock value of a scrawny thirteen-year-old girl swinging a duffel bag at your head, which often bought me the few seconds I needed to bolt and scurry away from a situation.

This bag has been squashed into hidden spaces, overcrowded compartments, and train station lockers. It has been dropped in exhaustion on countless floors, and thrown onto beds, benches, and countertops. It has been drenched in rain and dragged through floods.

There are scratches and patches, fades and tears.

It has traveled with me from childhood home to the streets, to the first group home, then the second, then the third. This bag and its contents were my only possessions when I got my first apartment at fifteen, and it was the first thing I carried over the threshold when I moved into my current home as a homeowner at thirty-two.

My go-bag is an ever evolving time capsule.

My toy dog, Barf, is still in there.

Two decks of cards, one fresh and untouched, the other containing cards covered in the remnants of spilled drinks from too many nights playing Kings Cup and Ride The Bus. Marked and bent edges along some sharpie with rules or random drink messages on others.

I secretly suspect there may be trace elements of certain white powders amongst them, from messy nights long ago and well behind me.

Lessons from the Streets 101: if you’re going into a group of people you don’t know, always have a deck of cards. If you don’t offer strength, street cred, or other forms of protection, you’re going to need to have entertainment value and a way to pass the time.

An apron pinned with a name tag from my first job. It might have just been behind the counter of a fish and chip shop, but I was damned proud when I started working literally the first day I was legally allowed to at fourteen and nine months.

I took pride in that job. To me, it was a step towards independence, the key to a better life, earning, saving, and paying my way there one order at a time.

All these years later, working a job I absolutely love with a good income, I still remember the pride I had putting on that apron and straightening the pin for the first time.

There’s a shoe box of old photos, many of them Polaroid that wait to remind me of the early years of the hipster era. An awkward time period where my style was some abominable monster caught between street rags, goth, and hipster anachronisms. Shudder. Best that evidence stays stored away, perhaps.

A matchbox filled with safety pins, a Swiss Army knife, a travel sewing kit, and a lighter. Those practical items only certain types of people with certain types of backgrounds believe you should always have on hand.

A hard-cover document case contains all the practical things I may need in an emergency, insurance documents, copies of identification, birth certificates, and the like, but also other things.

Concert tickets from live shows attended with various friends and lovers over the years. Each with memories attached.

A card from my nan received on my thirteenth birthday, just weeks before I left. A notebook I carried everywhere once upon a time, it’s filled with bored sketches, notes between friends, times, and addresses scribbled in corners. Post-it notes passed between friends, maps plotting adventures from my teens and early twenties.

Today, though, I have come to rifle through these memories in search of one artifact in particular.

A hand-written menu on thick paper, intentionally stained with tea and burnt at the edges to look like old parchment. This old, worn piece of paper is particularly rich with sentimental value.

Created when I was fifteen, with a crush on a girl who was way too cool for me to make a move. She had joked about how one day she would go to a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths and candles, how she wanted to go and eat at least three courses. She wanted to go just by herself with a book.

She had said one day she would be the type of person who could afford it, who had earnt the right to be comfortable surrounded by the finer things.

I reached out to a co-worker who had a second job at a well-regarded restaurant, asking him if he could introduce me to one of the kitchenhands.

After I told him my plan, it was passed around like a game of rumour and somehow found its way to the ear of the head chef, and a deal was struck. I would trade time as a dishwasher, and he would teach me to cook her favourite meals, provide me with ingredients and allow me to borrow a fancy white tablecloth, a set of cutlery, and a fancy silver candle holder.

I transformed our balcony into a private dining area, hanging strings of soft lights, and creating a bench along one side out of milk crates tied together with a piece of plywood superglued to the top, covered in a decorative quilt and cushions.

I moved the dining room table outside, ironing the borrowed tablecloth and setting the cutlery according to a carefully drawn diagram I had made after studying how the restaurant did it.

When she arrived I was dressed in my best attempt at fancy waiter. White button-down shirt, black vest, pants, and blazer, ushering her to her private dining experience. A copy of her favourite book was waiting for her on the table.

She called me a weirdo and a dork, but behind the joking tone and laughing smile, there was a softness in her eyes. A sense of gratitude and vulnerability neither of us was ready to acknowledge or express, but it was there, and that was more than enough for me.

She walked around the balcony, taking it all in, as I stood by the door, my heart unsure whether to break or leap from my chest as I watched her process every detail that had been set up just-so, and just for her.

Eventually, she caught my eye and I gestured to the table, moving to pull the chair out for her.

“Lottie, is this a date?” She eyed me with lightly mocking skepticism and a guarded, accusatory tone.

“Yep, with you and the words of Mr. Heller,” I did my best to deliver the line with a light, casual tone, and a friendly smile as I handed her the copy of Catch-22.

“Okay then, smart-arse, so what’s the occasion?”

More relaxed this time, closer to the usual tone of friendly banter, although a slight wariness remained.

“No occasion, just that you’ve already earnt the right to be comfortable surrounded by the finer things. You already deserve the best”

I didn’t get the girl that night, although we remained good friends and a little while later would become friends with benefits.

A little after that we would attempt dating, then go through an on-again-off-again cycle of dating for years as we both learned about life, and relationships, did some growing and some messing up.

Sitting on the floor, go-bag at my side as it has been so many times before, my thumb gently rubs along the paper as I allow myself to get lost in the memory.

The sound of the front door breaks my reverie. My fiancé, Stevie, returned home after dropping the kids off for a night with their biological grandmother.

Hastily replacing items and zipping the go-bag shut before pushing it back into its corner in the closet. I dust off my pants and straighten my shirt and jacket, my hands pushing and smoothing my hair back into place.

“LOTTIE!”

I wander out to find Stevie standing in the courtyard. I have decorated it with strings of soft lights, new cushions line the bench seat along the side wall, there’s a flawlessly ironed white linen table cloth over the table, and cutlery set in the ways dictated by fine dining.

I stand by the door, watching her take it all in, our eyes meet and I hold up a handwritten menu from twenty years ago, the thick paper intentionally stained with tea and burnt at the edges to look like old parchment.

“No occasion, just because you still deserve the best”

She calls me a weirdo, and a dork, but this time I get a hug and a kiss. Our engagement rings meet as our hands intertwine.

My go-bag contains twenty-seven years of memories, borne from the fears of a child who only saw survival in looking ahead and seeking clarity.

Twenty of those years have been with a woman, who is still far too cool for me, but together we have learned the art of moving forward without fear of also looking back.

Thank you so much for reading, and for your support. I hope this story has found you well.

~Lottie