My Unintentional Time Capsule

   I recently spent some time looking through a time capsule of sorts.  I say “of sorts” because it’s a rather unintentional time capsule.  It’s more like something from the past that’s been sitting in my closet, and I hadn’t really taken the time to go through it until now.

   This time capsule takes the form of my college backpack.

   I don’t remember how long I used this backpack, and I vaguely remember a different one I used before this one.  But this is the one that I used to finish up my classes, earn my B.A. degree, and graduate Summa Cum Laude.  This is the one that has had a spot in my closet since I “retired” it upon graduating in 2001.

   Back then, my backpack had to be a sort of “survival kit.”  For most of my college years, I didn’t use a car for my daily commute, so my backpack had to have everything I might need for the day -- books, coursework, Walkman (remember those?), money, Kleenex, food.  Back then, I was out of the house for most of the day.  I felt so far away from home, even though I was just “over the hill” at California State University Northridge.

   I went through my backpack, checked all the zippered compartments (all empty), and fingered the key rings.  One from Lake Arrowhead, one from Sea World.  I looked at the buttons -- one featuring the Earth, a scuffed up “Just Do It” pin, one for Laguna Beach, another for Santa Barbara, one reminding me to “Practice Random Acts of Kindness.”

   Inside my backpack, I found my notebook.  Still with dividers and extra sheets of paper.  And still with a written copy of  my last semester’s schedule -- a Kinesiology class and two English classes.

      Inside the notebook, I found my “feel good reminders.”  A typed copy of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman.  A small credit-card-sized card with a “Follow Your Dream” poem on it.  Pictures of my husband and I.  A sticker-picture of my sister and I.  A worn-out Webster’s Notebook Dictionary, something I remember using back in elementary school.

   This backpack was a part of who I was then -- a college student trying to do it all (earn good grades, work, figure out marriage, plan for my career).  

   What I found inside my backpack, my notebook, is still a part of who I am now.  A writer, a wife, a woman who needs occasional reassurances and feel-good messages.

   Some things don’t change.