Whenever I travel, I always have three items: Puglee, my Five Year Diary and "The Manifesto." Granted, I usually have a plethora of other things as well, but at this point, I would bet that it is physically impossible for me to get on a plane without knowing these three items are in my carry-on. While I'm a firm believer in the fact that material objects should have a low ranking in the scheme of life, I am attached to these three things beyond belief and they are, each for their own reason, my favorite items that I own.
My dad gave me Puglee when I unwillingly got my license as a junior in high school. As most people are aware, I hate driving and that sentiment was basically the same during my junior year. I had actually taken Drivers Ed two years earlier, but had never gotten around to taking the driving test, partly because I really enjoyed riding my bike all over town, but mostly because the Idaho driving test includes difficult questions about who has the right of way: you or a cow, and also, I couldn't park a car between the lines to save my life. Eventually, though, the state of Idaho called me and said if I didn't get my license before I turned seventeen, there would be some sort of problem. I was sort of unclear as to what the problem would be and I think that the state of Idaho was actually unclear as well because it wasn't something they dealt with on the reg. (Turns out, it was extremely rare for a teenager to wait two-and-a-half years to take their driving test). Anyway, they basically told me that I needed to get my license stat. So, I did. I got the question about the cow correct on the written portion, miraculously parked in between two cars during my road exam and received my license from Sandpoint's DMV, a weirdly small office with a giant painting of a Native American that is oddly the most dominant element of the room. Then, when I got home, my dad gave me Puglee.
Puglee is clearly an ugly doll which would make sense since she's made by the company, Uglydoll. Uglydoll is a company devoted to proving that "real beauty is found in the twists and turns that makes us who we are" and believes that "ugly means unique and different," trying to promote everyone to "always be ugly." It's a confidence-boosting company that produces a very odd product, which I love and appreciate because I think being unique and different and odd are great qualities, but that's not the reason that I can't travel without Puglee.
I can't travel without Puglee because my dad gave me her to watch over me while I travel, whether that be the first time I drove from my house to school on my own or four years later, when catching a plane solo between Indiana and Boston has become my second-nature. When I travel with Puglee, I feel safe. Puglee hung from my rear-view mirror when I jumped my car over a giant hole in the Subway parking lot my senior year of high school and she sat in my backpack when I got stranded in DC for three days trying to come home from Winter Break my senior year of college. While a lot of my friends' parents gave them some sort of guardian angel pin to look after them on the road, I got Puglee, and that is weird and unique and different and absolutely perfect.
Also, here's a photo of the time I jumped my car over a giant hole. It was super embarrassing and completely accidental, but I stand by the fact that it was a superb feat of driving because if I had gone any faster, the tail of my car would have gone in the four-foot hole and if I had gone any slower, the front would have dipped in, causing it to flip. It was a weird experience and my dad deserves a shout-out for somehow getting the car off without any damage and for not freaking out when I called him at work to tell him what happened and also, for not getting mad at me and Jessie taking selfies with the scene of the accident.
When I moved from Idaho to Boston, Puglee was obviously in my backpack and, when I bought my Five Year Diary in August 2011, she was already packed in my suitcase, ready to once more make the trek back to Ball State. I bought my Five Year Diary when I was going through my phase of walking into Urban Outfitters and being physically unable to leave the premises without touching every single item in the store. I was shopping with my brothers and then-boyfriend at the time and, when I found the small, blue book that would later mean so much to me, I'm pretty sure all three of them had reached their threshold of being in Urban and they were not amused at my "impulse buy" that caused us to stand in a long line of hipsters with facial piercings and beards. In fact, my then-boyfriend even told me that there was no way I'd ever stick to filling something out for five years straight and I am happy to say that at this point, I have proved him wrong.
My Five Year Diary has one page for each day of the year that is broken into five sections: one section for each year. Each day, I write a few quick sentences about what I did that day. Some of them aren't very interesting because not every day in my life is absolutely fabulous. For those days, they're pretty mundane, like on January 16, 2012, when "Kate and I watched movies all day, then had lunch and dinner with our family and some FIJI's." There are other days though that are more exciting, like December 2, 2011, when "We all went to see Maddow and Letterman at Emens, then Anna, Erin and I experienced the incident of 'Formal 2011.'" Either way, reading about both of those events make me smile and I'm glad they are written down for me to always remember.
I like my Five Year Diary because it allows me to remember every day in my life, even the things that I don't want to. On April 15, 2013, I wrote "There was a bombing at the Boston Marathon while Jonny was on his way to the finish line. I've never been more terrified in my life." And, that's true: I spent a solid portion of the day of the Boston bombing crying in the shower and, while it's not a feeling I'd ever like to experience again, seeing what I wrote down at the time I was most vulnerable reminds me how lucky my family and I were that day. It also reminds me of all of the support I received from all of my friends and I'm thankful that my Five Year Diary allows me to see the positive aspects of my life.
I think the most important lesson that my Five Year Diary has given me is the gift of perspective. Last week, I was having a weird week and something just felt off. There was nothing particularly wrong happening in my life: I realize that I am very privileged in the opportunities that I am able to be a part of and I am surrounded by a positive support system, but still, one small event completely altered my mood for a few days. Looking through my Five Year Diary, I was able to see that in the long run, what I am going through will most likely not matter a year from now. The problems that I have now are not problems I had a year ago. Take today's date, for example. On January 27, 2012, I was worried because I was going on a "sort-of" date with a boy that AND I was stressed out because I was 99% sure that there was a ghost living in my room at the Kappa Delta house. A year later, on January 27, 2013, I was not dating the boy from the previous year, I was no longer living in a haunted house and I was much more concerned with getting me and Allie McFlurries after spending the night on our friend Stern's couch. When I feel stressed out or upset about what I'm going through right now, it's nice for me to be able to look at my Five Year Diary and definitely realize that a year from now, I will have a different life perspective and the ability to tackle different problems.
Searching for a different life perspective is what made me pick up my third favorite item, "The Manifesto," in the first place. By this time, I was able to walk into an Urban without causing a scene and now that we were able to get in-and-out of UO in under an hour, it freed up a lot of time for us to explore other stores in the city. My brothers and I were searching for new records at Newbury Comics when I accidentally found "The Manifesto." It was a small book with a blank white cover: no author, no title, nothing. When I opened it, the book began in short paragraphs without an introduction or anything to give the reader context. Quickly skimming the first page, my eyes fell across the last line, a sentence by itself.
It read: "I didn't want an obvious life."
I bought it immediately.
I read "The Manifesto" every time I'm on a plane, though I have yet to finish it. It's a story of someone who feels different, who feels lost and misunderstood and doesn't want to live in the conventional way of life that is expected of him by society. It's told in jarring, short paragraphs that skip randomly from one scene to the next. It's written in a way that is confusing and beautiful and simple and harsh all at once. In one paragraph, it will be absolutely impossible for me to connect with what the author is feeling, but in the next, his words are so spot-on it's almost like I wrote them myself.
The last time I was on a plane, I was coming back to Indiana after winter break. At some point on the plane ride, I made the realization that it was likely to be my last trip from Boston to Indiana I ever made as a college student. Despite Puglee being in my backpack and the knowledge of perspective that my Five Year Diary gave me, I started freaking out about how I was so close to becoming an adult. To calm myself down, I picked up "The Manifesto" and opened it at random. Literally the first paragraph I read stated exactly what I was going through, which was basically all of the feelings:
"It was different to be twenty-one, to be expected to have a life-plan, a vision and resolve. I wasn't just running anymore. I was jittery and anxious. I needed to come out of the fall, to rise up, trophy in hand. I didn't want to smash against the rocks, splashed out of existence."
"The Manifesto" completes my list of favorite items because it reminds me that I don't need to feel put together and adult-like yet. It's okay for me to feel nervous about the future. It's okay for me to feel old at twenty-one, attempting to get a life plan in order, but at the same time, feeling too young to even be in a situation that requires that yet. It's okay for me to be afraid of failing and, at the same time, it's okay for me to fail.
In the same weird way that a small, stuffed animal makes me feel safe and a book filled with my memories makes me feel fulfilled, "The Manifesto" reminds me that I am not going to settle for an obvious life. Wherever I end up, these three items will travel with me and in their own way, they will always make me feel okay.