Last year when we were coming back from Japan, we stuffed our car seat case with lots of extra things we had purchased there, which were mostly clothes and snacks. When we came back to New York and unpacked the car seat case, I was surprised to not find the Uniqlo ultra-warm Heat Tech black turtleneck I had purchased. It was brand new, never worn. I turned everything upside down to find it, yet the sweater was no where to be found. I became increasingly annoyed. I kept searching over the course of five days. Chris insisted that if it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there; he had seen me go through things more than four or five times and was pretty sure I had looked at everything. It was the one thing from our trip that was unaccounted for, and it bothered me to no end. I always hate it when I lose anything, even the smallest thing. It’s rarely about the value; for me, it’s about the mere principle of losing something. That sweater retails for about $25 USD in the States, and in Tokyo, I had gotten it for the equivalent of $9-10 USD. But I let go, as in reality, $9-10 isn’t an insane amount of money to lose.

Fast forward to today, and I asked our building porter to bring up our large suitcases in the building basement. I had seen an #ISO (# in search of) post in my local Buy-Nothing group for a car seat case for air travel. Chris confirmed he didn’t want to use ours anymore, so I decided to pass it on to the next Buy-Nothing neighbor. I had generously received ours from another neighbor, who had also only used it for one international trip. I took the car seat case out of the suitcase and fully unzipped it. I remembered the missing black sweater in this moment, and so, for good measure, I thoroughly patted down the inside of the car seat case one last time to ensure nothing was stuck in it. Suddenly, I felt a different cloth texture embedded in a compartment. Then, I turned the case upside down and shook the whole thing vigorously. And out came my black Uniqlo sweater, missing for the last year and three months!! I was so, so happy! I immediately picked it up and put it on, admiring myself wearing it in the mirror. My brand new black sweater was found!!

Sometimes, it’s the little things in life. And I truly do embrace these little things in the daily humdrum that is life. This one surprise find truly made my day today.