I am not a very careful person with the things I own but from a recent trip, ‘life’ gave me a temporary scare – maybe to teach to me to be a tad otherwise or amid my down times lately, feel #blessed.

Last week, I lost my wallet in a foreign country for I-cannot-count-how-long-because-my-mind-was-foggy-then-I-cannot-even-think. I remember being so busy (or panicky rather) figuring out how to buy ticket for an off-city train I wanted badly to get into as fast as I could that as soon as I got my ticket, I must have rushed to finding the right train platform – forgetting everything else. Upon settling to what I thought was a jackpot seat by the window, I for some reason started looking for my wallet. This sweet old couple across me – despite all language barrier – pointed to my cellphone that was lying on an empty seat beside. But at that time, that was not was I was looking for. I was still not sure that my wallet wasn’t just stuck hiding from me somewhere in my bag and pocket but in less than a minute, again for some reason, I left the train I was so badly trying to catch and knew I had to leave to find what was missing.

Indeed, I lost my wallet. I went back to the machine and it was not there. Unsystematically, I retraced my previous path. It was a busy station that I was starting to feel hopeless. In less than five minutes of search, I knew I lost something important.

Money – do I have some money? Luckily, I have in my pocket some 300 Taiwanese dollars – some sense of relief and for a second felt thankful for my lack of organization when it comes to where I put change.

Credit cards – whoever got my wallet in bad motive will most likely use my cards as if those are theirs. For a second, I thought about roam-calling the banks to cancel my cards immediately.

Lost plans – this was one of the busier days for the trip and well, there was just no money for that now.

I went to the Information booth which only told me I have to go to the machines to check – machines that are unmanned. I looked at the busy-ness around me and thought – no one would have cared really. I would have not.

But before crying or expensively calling, I chose to retrace.

I found myself close to the gate I was rushing to get into earlier. And on this booth of the person manning, I found my wallet. It took some time of explaining to the officers what happened but with a show of my passport matching with the government ID in my wallet, I got it back. But yes, someone returned it.

I believe in the #blessed part of the story – the unexplainable right time to doubt when something important is missing, that ‘push’ to actually look for it, that imaginary voice that tells you where to go to find it. But I also believe in the little details that saved me-

Like putting an ID of yours in your wallet so it is believable that you are not making things up.

So at the end of day, it is easy to prove this adult world that what is yours – is yours.