When I was in middle school, I recieved my first bag. My mother called it a purse. Women wear purses. It was my purse, and it made me feel like a woman. Made of black canvas and several inches smaller than seventh grade insecurity, it contained: my wallet, small friendship tokens (the "best" of "best friends," a thumb-sized bear figurine wearing a dress, with fur that might have once been described as "fuzzy"), bonne belle chapsticks in flavors like "root beer" and "candy apple," and later on, a house key. My nature has never been nomadic in the traditional sense of the word; having an intimate sense of place is extraordinarily comforting to me. However (or therefore), I, to this day, feel incomplete without a backpack or canvas bag slung over one or both of my shoulders. Paired with the fact that I am chronically chilled and rarely remove my jacket (let alone my mittens), I always look as if I am either about to leave or have recently arrived. I suppose that this isn't altogether untrue. My backpack currently contains: a wallet, a change purse, a spare pair of mittens, a twister tie, a planner, two kinds of hand lotions, at least twenty hair ties, a hilighter pencil, a hilighting marker, several led pencils, three pens, two erasers, a tin of mints, a journal, a spoon, keys, a cell phone, a glasses case, the backing of a "self-adhesive name badge" (Hello, my name is ______ ), a bag of makeup, a hair brush, a paper bag containing a piece of bread cut in to four square sections arranged in a stout stack, a thermos containing vegetable soup, a second thermos filled with hot water, another spoon, a scarf, a pair of black gloves, and too many chapsticks. A special pouch is reserved for this collection, which currently includes: Un-Petroleum Cherry SPF15, Lip Lover Grape Juice, Chapstick Naturals Shea Butter, Chapstick Flava-Craze Fruit Craze, Chapstick Moisturizer Original, Chapstick Moisturizer Vanilla-Mint, Weleda Everon, Burt's Bees "World's Best With a Hint of Luminescent Color" in Rhubarb, and Badger Cocoa Butter. I cleaned my backpack last night, and rid it of all things that I do not absolutely need to have on my person at all times in order to alleviate the pressing feeling that I am extremely lost. The aforementioned remain.