The Things We Carry Back

The Things We Carry Back

Our fridge is starting to look like a map drawn by a chaotic cartographer.

Saloni says we’re running out of magnetic real estate. She’s probably right.

There’s a ceramic scooter from Italy. A slightly chipped bottle opener from Barcelona. A rusty fridge magnet from Singapore. A shot glass from Cambodia.

To anyone else, it’s just clutter. Cheap trinkets sold in tourist traps for three euros a pop.

But we don’t buy them for the art.

We buy them because memory is slippery.

You think you’ll remember the specific shade of blue of the water in Lan Ha Bay, or the exact way the coffee tasted that morning in Vienna. But you don’t. Life layers over it. Work emails, grocery lists, and traffic jams slowly bury the details.

So, we keep the anchors.

The Boarding Passes

I found a stack of them the other day, tucked into a drawer we rarely open.

Faded ink on flimsy thermal paper. DEL to FCO. PRG to BOM.

They look like trash, but they are evidence.

Especially that crumpled one from Prague.

That piece of paper saw actual panic.

It remembers the "Gate Closing" sign blinking red.

It remembers us sprinting through the terminal, lungs burning, dragging carry-ons that suddenly felt like they weighed fifty kilos.

It witnessed the breathless collapse into seats 14A and 14B, sweating and laughing, realizing we were idiots.

But we were lucky idiots.

It captures the anticipation, the bad airport sandwich, and the feeling of being suspended between two lives.

The Shot Glasses

We don’t even drink shots that often.

Yet, there they are. Lined up on a shelf like little glass soldiers.

One from a dive bar in Budapest. Another from a beach shack in Goa.

They aren’t for drinking anymore. They’re for remembering the nights that went too late. The laughter that was too loud. The conversations that made sense only at 2 AM.

The Magnets

And then, the fridge.

Every time I reach for the milk, I see the Eiffel Tower.

Not the real one. The plastic one.

And I remember Saloni’s face when she saw the lights sparkle for the first time.

We collect these things not to hoard.

We collect them to prove it happened.

That for a few days, we weren't just people with jobs and deadlines.

We were travelers.

We survived the chaos, caught the flights, and saw the world.

And we have the fridge door to prove it.