As I am part of the Amazon Vine reviewer program, we get a lot of packages. I spend about an average of an hour every day opening packaging, checking out products and updating what items we are ready to review. The Teenager had a moment of brilliance, and created a package-opening station in our sun room– a garbage can for packing materials, a recycling can for the cardboard once I’ve broken it down and I set my Stitch Fix tool bag on the sill. It contained my ceramic knife, my safety box cutter, a sponge/eraser and my fingerless gloves among other little items like pencils.

The safety box cutter migrated to my desk. My Stitch Fix branded fingerless gloves ended up on the floor.

But on Monday, when I went to open a pile of packages, the clear bag of tools was gone. Just gone. My guess is that it fell off of the window sill and into the garbage can when The Teenager took out the trash, and it looks like it did it before she changed the trash as the trash can is empty. And the trash has long been carted away.

It’s nothing important. But the loss of the small cosmetic-bag-sized collection of tools from the warehouse made me pause and dropped me into a sadness, a grief, that I did not anticipate.

You see on Friday, on Friday it will be six months exactly since I left the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. I have had many interviews, many hopes and still put out many applications. In my heart I still hope to make my small publishing services and book publishing operation a success and live off that, but unemployment will end very soon so the reality looms.

I still believe I can succeed.

I did not anticipate the way the universe seems to be saying, “it’s over. It’s really over. Do not cling to these thoughts and items you clung to in the warehouse.”

I have a few friends who I have kept. Many other people I had hoped would stay in touch and it doesn’t seem to be happening, but life goes on.

I am so surprised by the depth of my sadness at losing a ceramic box cutter and a spongy eraser thing.

But sometimes you really, really have to let go to move on. And in my opinion, the universe or “God” or whatever creative power you believe in, kicks you in the ass to make you do it.

So one of the products I’ve reviewed is a pack of French motivational stickers– and if you know me, you know I adore the French language. These stickers make me happy and I am plopping them onto my computer and my calendar.

Another was a small message board that I have set upon my desk and I periodically change the quote and my goal is to post quotes from my clients, because my clients and authors are the people who keep me going.

Joe recently ordered a lot of hardcover books for the upcoming Pennsylvania School Library Association conference and when he asked me how much he owed me… well, it was a nice chunk of money, ending in $6 and some off change. He immediately texted that he would get me the $6 soon and for some reason that made me cackle. So I put it on the board.

And then, more recently, I had to announce the discontinuation of my “friends and family” rate for clients and one of my clients sent me a long email supporting my decision because I am not running a charity, he said, and I need to keep a room over my head, gas in my car and (my favorite) Panera coffee in my belly. So I added his quote, “You deserve to have an adequate income,” to my board. (I also placed the board beside my enormous “I’m kind of a big deal” mug and my silly jellyfish aquarium lamp.)

Last week created a lot of stress for me. Good stress I guess because clients all needed things and checks are coming in this week. But it also taught me that I really need to protect my sanity in this endeavor.

Today, I took the checks to the bank, deposited some cash payments from clients, and took my neighbor who just had cataract surgery to run errands. We visited the municipal building, which I had only ever seen the council chambers. That allowed me to view a few Wilson borough artifacts.

The Western Addition of the City of Easton, a blue print map of building plots available, dated 1893, hung on the wall. It was indeed blue, like the slate blue of an old fashioned chalkboard, and it showed what would later become Wilson Borough.