What Held Me Together

A worn out white canvas bag, cube shaped, dingy, lined and falsely protected by a layer of plastic. This is what held the belongings of my older sister and I as we were exchanged between our parents in the Brooklyn Park police station parking lot. While there were no criminals involved in these exchanges there were two toddlers and a couple previously married. A bag that was used every other weekend and every Tuesday night to hold the toddler sized clothes, my sisters baby blanket, and my blanket bunny originally named, “Bunny.” Much like the white plastic toddler bed that I slept in for far too long, beyond when I comfortably fit in it, this white bag was used to the point of no repair where the strap broke and the plastic bits were flaking off. This bag was replaced before my constraining bed with a beige canvas tote bag with a colorful logo of one of the companies my father’s workplace printed for, a free and otherwise useless bag to my father, but at least the bag was bigger…

That bag too became obsolete, not because it was worn out but because it was too small, and used less frequently. Amanda and I got older, our school started earlier, we started to build our own lives, we had our own bags we used every other weekend with the death of the Tuesdays. The death of Tuesdays that started because Amanda was going into highschool and school started too early for my Dad to drop us off in the morning before work. Tuesdays that became Tuesday dinners that were taken over by sports practices and homework, so much homework, so much homework that he never understood, and I don’t think he ever will. Homework that involved the sewing of my navy blue duffle bag in eighth grade that became the bag I would take back and forth along with myself to my fathers house, a labor he would never understand.

The same bag that was used on my graduation day to hold my belongings, a change of clothes, water bottle, wallet, chapstick, all the things I needed for the senior overnight party I would be bussed off to following my graduation. The bag that my mom held for me the whole time and exchanged the belongings in it with me after graduation, where my father was not. Where my father was not because he decided, just like with every other event that he attended for my sister and I, that he had to leave early to beat the traffic because he had work the next day, or he didn’t want to go to bed too late, he had a long day. I knew my bag would be there for me, I knew my mother would be there for me, not because she had my bag but because she was there for me to see me graduate. I guess I should have given my father the bag because maybe then he would’ve had an obligation to stay. Sure, he stayed to see me walk across the stage to accept my empty diploma holder. He didn’t stay to see me ceremoniously move my tassel from one side to the other to signify my graduation, he didn’t stay to see me afterward, hug me, congratulate me, acknowledge me. Instead I was met with my bag, my mother, and my sister holding back tears because not only had he left me, he left my sister there, because she cared, she cared to see me fully graduate, she cared to see and congratulate me afterward.

The bag that I sewed in eighth grade, a handmade navy blue duffle bag, was there for me more than my father was at my graduation and otherwise. I owe this bag thanks for coming together for me, for not coming apart for me, for staying together for me, for being there for me, for being what protected my things, protected me every other weekend, something my father will never understand. This bag wasn’t free, this bag wasn’t obsolete, I was proud of this bag and this bag was proud of me. A bag that has had more presence in my life since its creation in eighth grade than my father, a bag that I still use two years into college, a bag that doesn’t see the inside of my father’s truck or my father’s house anymore, a bag that sees the inside of my apartment, the inside of my boyfriend’s house, Annie’s freshman year dorm, a summer camping trip to Grand Marais last summer, a bag that will go everywhere with me. I have had many bags, starting from the one used when I was a toddler to go to my fathers. I believe I will always come back to my navy blue duffle bag, even when I don’t come back to my mother or my father.

A bag that I had to work for in order for it to work for me. A bag that I dedicated myself to at thirteen, a bag that I truly cared about. A bag that, while it was a school project, kept its place in my mind wherever I went until I finished it. A bag that I made a lot of mistakes when I was making it, but I never gave up and it will never give up on me. A bag that while the whole process of making it wasn’t easy, I don’t feel ashamed to look at it. A bag that doesn’t conjure up the most complicated emotions I have ever experienced. A bag that doesn’t make me feel guilty when I spend time away from it, because I will always return to it. A bag that I treat gently, even after all these years afraid that the threads holding it together could start to come apart at any moment if I am not careful enough. A harsh reality to admit that I treat a bag better than how some of the people in my life who should be closest to me treat me.

A bag that doesn’t make me think about the meaning of “bite the hand that feeds you,” the meaning of love, the meaning of family.

A dad that wants to be praised for the bare minimum. Parents that claimed they never wanted to talk about money around their young children. A father that complained about child support to his children. A mother that accidentally raised children so aware of finance they still say thank you after everything, even the grocery store. A father that doesn’t know how to spend time with his children beyond watching movies and going through the same series of questions everytime they interact. “How are you?” “How is school?” “How was work?” A father that didn’t want to work at fatherhood, and could never work at sewing a bag himself.

A bag that was there to see it all. Although one bag wasn’t there the whole time, the whole life. Each bag understood what the last one had gone through, a new life already burdened by the past of another. A bag that wasn’t given the chance to be great, left at a predisposition for mediocrity and practicality. A bag that was the one guaranteed constant, source of assurance, the one to be relied upon. A bag that never relayed the feeling of second best, even if it was forced to accept that in its past. A bag that personifies so much that the being who should be its portrayal, role model, mirror image, could never accomplish. A bag that really isn’t a bag at all.

A bag that couldn’t have consented to being made. A child that couldn’t have consented to being made. Two separate entities that didn’t ask to be brought into this world that were united by that fact, among others.

A bag usually has two handles, mine all have except for the duffel I made with two handles and a long strap. Nevertheless, children usually have two parents, I do except for their never really being together in my lifetime and my stepmom. I find it funny. Bags have two handles, but they’re usually held by just one person, it would look a little silly if two people were holding one bag together, or would it look sweet? Two parents, each holding one hand of their child while walking all together, occasionally lifting their child up and swinging them a bit. I wonder what my past would have been like if I had one parent holding one handle of my bag and one parent holding the other handle of my bag. I’ve always held the handles of my bag alone.

While they may not all be good memories, each bag has a story to tell. All of these bags have experienced the music my father would play on the car rides to his house whether it was Kool 108 or whatever cd he had gotten most recently. Because of my father my bag and I know all of the tracks to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Zac Brown Band’s The Foundation, more Johnny Cash songs than I can name, and more music by The Eagles than most in my parents generation. A bag that sat with me as I silently listened to the lyrics of the songs my father would play on repeat, wondering what my father thought of them, who he thought of while listening to them, or why he liked them. A bag that shared a silent discourse with me when my father would play “Highway 20 Ride” by Zac Brown Band. The same thoughts from when I was a single-digit aged child to now still remain in my mind, is that how my father felt about my sister and I, is that how he perceived himself? I’ll never ask my father about this just like I will never get a response from a bag, my bag.

Maybe I have fallen to the same fault my father has, I have not thought about the future. There are many reasons why people have kids. There are many reasons why people have bags. However, what no one thinks about when they’re thinking about having a kid, getting a bag, is what will happen when they’re gone. Who will care for my bag, use but not abuse? What will be left when I am no longer here?