Passport missing?!?!
All packed up and ready to leave the Ashbolt Farm, I went to do the regular visual check of passport and vital documents.Standard operating procedure, I do it every time I leave a place.
This time it is not standard; I can’t find the passport or the passport holder with the Nexus Card or my vaccine record. I also can’t find the back-up wallet with the back-up credit card.
I tore everything apart three times. I searched drawers, I searched the entire little cabin. None of it is there. It must be at the Airbnb in Hobart, right? Tried to call. This is the day that the entire Optus network is down. The VP of Optus got fired for the massive outage. What it meant to me was that instead of heading north, I took the bus all the way back to Hobart to see if the passport was in a drawer in room #2. It wasn’t. I took everything out of everything two more times.
Fast forward – I racked my brain, asked the host to search, went through my things a few more times, racked my brain until it hurt, then finally decided to call it. I lost my passport and I couldn’t even figure out how or where. It took a lot to not get stuck in being angry with myself. Knowing that guilt and ego were not going to change the simple fact did not help.
So, I made a plan to go to Melbourne to the US consulate to replace the passport. I will write that up as a separate story. It deserves its own post.
My mantra became, see the upsides in the opportunities this event created in my life. That mantra was useful in relieving some of the ego driven desire to know where the old passport was. Seize the opportunity gave me a positive energy around the event.
Here’s how that has panned out – incredible, really.
- Reconnected with a work colleague AND meet his amazing wife Jody
- Roadtrip through a smart part of the state of Victoria, including the Great Ocean Road
- Visit another animal sanctuary and hear a male koala call for a mate and see baby wallabies in pouches
- Bottle feed wombats and help take care of so many other animals
