One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop

I lost a student's paper this morning. One I had not yet graded. I KNOW she handed it in; I had seen it on my desk and said, "I must grade that soon" (it was a paper she had gotten an extension for.

Now it is gone.

I hate this. I almost never lose things (which is especially amazing given the state of my office; but I maintain that the messy stacks of things are actually easier to remember where things are for me; I have a very good spatial memory but if I move things around too much, it's too much information to process and I can't find anything).

I feel like such a failure when this happens. (or when I miss a bad typo on an exam.) I feel like if I were a "real" grownup, rather than someone who is pretending to be such, it wouldn't happen.

I know, everyone makes mistakes. But those of us who aren't really-real grownups have to toe the line even more, lest we tumble back into being seven years old.

(Though then again, it would be nice to have someone come into my room in the morning and say softly, "It's time to wake up, dear," instead of having to have an alarm clock, and it would be nice to have someone to pack a lunch for me).

I am really trying to do too much.

I've looked for it and will keep looking as time permits, but I doubt I will find it at this point. (I even tried the old "St. Anthony prayer." No, I am not Catholic, but I know other non-Catholics who do it. And on a couple occasions, it's actually worked. Of course, I have to mutter it under my breath here at work instead of saying it out loud as I do at home).

There's also, I suppose, a very remote chance that it got stapled onto the back of a student paper for my OTHER class (none of them seem capable of stapling and I know I was grading in a wild hurry Saturday morning) and it's now long gone.

This frustrates me. I don't need this kind of frustration right now.