Learning To Recognise When To Stop.

Alice Rahon 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rahon

This morning we had a visit from two women, from our local district council office.

They were here because I need to renew my identity card, we had everything ready for them, photos, letter from the doctor stating the reason I am in bed as well as the money.

They were here just after 10 o'clock, exactly at the moment when I was wondering whether I would have to phone them at their office to remind them of the appointment.

No need to do that as they had arrived, once they were here they were very pleased that we had everything ready for them.

Then they asked to see my passport as this was no problem Richie went off to get it.

We then heard a lot of activity in the front room; we heard drawers being opened and rummaged in, then closed again.

Finally after what seemed like ages Richie came back in the room carrying the empty leather pouch, all my documents were missing.

In the pouch had been my original birth certificate +3 copies as well as a historic copy of my birth certificate.

There was also my first Trinidad passport, an out of date Trinidad passport as well as an expired English passport and my Dutch passport.

There was also my father’s application to become a British citizen, as well as some letters from my now dead favourite Auntie Josephine.

What a mystery, the last time I saw the documents was when I renewed my Dutch passport and applied for an identity card at the same time that was in 2007.

I was asked whether I moved the documents, my reply was that I could never imagine doing so; my only recollection is that the papers were in the pouch.          

Which was the best place for them, they've been in the pouch from 1988 when a friend gave it to me.

Neither I nor Richie have any idea where the papers could possibly be, the council workers told us my identity card would be ready in a week.

Richie signed a form that he will be the one collecting it, he was told to look for the expired passport and if he couldn't find it they would report it as missing.

Which just leaves us with the question where are the papers, if we didn't move who did and why.

Richie will either discover them in the next day or two, or it will just have to be a mystery which we cannot resolve, not my favourite but there's nothing I can do about it.

Being so handicapped I've learnt that I have to recognise when I can't change circumstances, then I have to let it go which is better than getting stressed about it.