It’s been a tough day.

Remember a week or so ago when I was talking about the box of journals that I sent to Red Velvet Art?  They didn’t make it. 

The box arrived empty, and the postal employees on Elsie’s end guessed that the box must have come open on a conveyor belt in the sorting facility.  Even though I know that the box was well packaged when it left my hands, packages sent via Media Mail can be opened to determine whether or not it actually qualifies for the media mail rate.  (It did.)  The only thing I can put together is that the box must have been searched and not re-packaged well.  This has never, ever happened to me in nearly a decade of doing mail order.

(photos from Elsie’s phone)

The good news is, the box was insured.  We’ve filed a claim and I should be compensated for my time and costs.

The bad news is, the box was insured.  Today I learned that when you purchase insurance for a package being sent through the United States Postal Service, you waive any rights of them looking for your package if it is considered “lost.”  Despite the fact that I had photos of exactly what was in the box, there was no one I could even talk to who would/could even try to look for them.  Customer service representative Jose (who was very kind and even a bit sympathetic towards me on the phone this morning) insisted that there was nothing I could do but file a claim for insurance.  No one would even try.  They were just gone.  Lost, stolen, possibly even destroyed; if the box is insured, it is all the same as far as the USPS is concerned.

I felt lost all morning.  And heart-broken.  And devastated.  Forty eight journals, each one bound by hand.  Forty eight hundred pieces of paper, cut by hand.  Twenty four irreplaceable book covers from discarded library books. 

When, frustrated and in tears, I somewhat sarcastically reminded him that things can’t just cease to exist, Jose (did I mention how kind he was?) told me that items that are separated from their packaging, which are determined to have a value of more than ten dollars are sold at auction in Atlanta.  I have no way of knowing if the journals will make it that far, or where they’ll end up.  The incorrigible optimist that I am, I want to believe that they’ll eventually end up in the hands of someone that will appreciate the work that went into them.  I have to believe it.

My journals are made almost entirely of recycled or repurposed paper and books.  My intent is to take something that no one wants and turn it into something entirely new.  The idea that they could just end up in a dumpster somewhere is hard to swallow.  I think it’s more about the one-of-a-kind nature of the books themselves than it is even my time spent or costs.  All day long I would think of another journal in the box and be bummed out all over again.  Or found papers and ephemera from my stash that I had used and can’t get back. 

But the show must go on.  You have to get back on the horse.  And so on.

All I can do is make more journals and replace what was lost.  Of course I can’t replace the exact journals, but I can make new ones.  I decided to get right to it and send whatever I had at the end of the weekend to Red Velvet.  I knew that if I didn’t, I would just sit around feeling sorry for myself all day, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.  Tod stayed home from work (I was still sobbing uncontrollably when he would have had to leave) and helped me get started all day, took care of dinner and presented me with one of my birthday presents a bit early – a heavier duty paper cutter.  I really have the greatest husband ever.

Ultimately, I was dealt a bad hand.  It sucks.  But there is power and strength to be gained in overcoming this sort of obstacle, no matter how frustrating.

Let’s do this.