So I happened to look through some of my pictures from one of my phones, and I realized, to my surprise, that i had in my collection, pictures of bags that i once used to carry, and own, but have now long been disposed.
Seeing them brought back a wave of nostalgia.
Some of them bags I carried more than ten years ago.
Back then I didn't think I would one day write about them, but they're actually worth a story, and honestly, I think I ought to take pictures of the bags that I now have.
Life changes, after all, and what you might have once carried around like a trophy in your day to day might not be (permitted) in the present-day role that you play.
I used to love the hippie-ethnic side of life.
I still do.
But life, and age, these days no longer lets me embrace that hippie-ethnic side as much as I wish I could.
So these pictures become a memory.
I don't have these bags anymore.
When it was I threw them away, I can't remember, but it must have been at least 6 or 7 years ago.
My favorite bags were the first and third ones.
Cloth bags have always been my thing.
Not only are they able to hold a good amount of stuff- wallet, notebook, makeup kit, phone, earphones, water bottle all- they're sturdy on the shoulders, they don't flounce around, they've got character, and best part, they're also easy to keep and fold. The only problem I have these days with the cloth bags I love is that they're not suited for the boardroom. By that I mean, the office, the business meetings, the formal settings where one has to look 'corporate'.
That being said, one never knows whet life brings and what may change, so perhaps one day we might just let the strength of ethnicity and cultural representation into the boardroom.
I don't remember where I got the first bag from, but the second one- the floral backpack- this I got from Bugis Street (when they were still selling backpacks), and the third- from one of the stalls either on Pagoda Street or Trengganu Street in Chinatown.
I have had a couple of backpacks over the years.
One of which was this one, which I think I might have written about before.
And then this one, and this one.
You know, all of these bags I remember well.
The first one I bought from a shop on the second floor of Larkin Bus Terminal. At that time The Parents and I were traveling to Malaysia quite a bit. Some days we went for day tours. Most of the time, however, we headed up to Kluang where we'd stay overnight, come back the next day. At that time my bag of choice was a duffel bag, which, as you might well imagine, with the multiple bus rides and the ups and downs on the public buses, tired out my shoulders and made me irritable. Not only was the duffel bag difficult to carry up and down the steps, it occupied space on the bus where, usually, I would have to stand. After a while of a hurting right shoulder, I decided to call it quits, and spent (precious) money on a backpack that had just as enough space, better support, and felt adventurous at the same time.
I used the backpack a couple more times after those trips, mostly to camps, and then there weren't opportunities anymore.
Why it is I kept this blue and black backpack all the way from 2009 to 2023, I don't know.
Maybe I thought it better to be out of sight, out of mind.
Or maybe I had quietly held on to a bit of hope.
But then came 2023 when we moved and I decided it not worth to keep the bag any longer.
I don't have this purple one below as well.
Perhaps one day I should go back to Mustafa and buy it, but not yet.
Those cycling trips haven't restarted yet.
Yep, that's what this bag was for. There were two I used. One was black, one was this purple. It's not a large backpack, mind, but so much space and so functional is it that, whilst the aesthetics might not be there, it is as useful a bag to bring around as any.
I loved the main section.
It was large enough to hold a wallet, snacks, deodorant and any other random thing I might have bought along the way. There had been times when this bag held small bottles of chocolate milk. There had also been times when this bag held biscuits and little snacks to fuel my round-island cycling trip that day.
One of the things I always had in this bag was a little green pouch holding a hair tie, a liner (TMI), a bottle of eye drops, and (don't laugh) lip balm.
Of course the outside section held stuff too.
There was, always, tissues and wipes. Then there were two pairs of glasses- one pair of sunglasses, one pair of clear glasses- to protect my eyes when cycling on the road at night. On occasion, the pocket also held my iPod, which, at that time, I listened all through the ride from start to end.
I don't know when it was I decided to throw this bag away.
It might not have been 2023, it might have been earlier.
But that doesn't matter.
It holds special meaning to me.
Finally there's this American Tourister bag.
Honestly I don't know if this bag was bought by me, or by my friend who then discovered another bag and so gifted this one to me. Memories get blur as time goes by, and somehow things that you ought to remember, you suddenly don't.
In this case this bag might well have been the latter.
What I do know is that I needed it for the long-a** GRAM laptop I was carrying, and with that kind of screen length there weren't many options I could have.
What's more, this backpack had a masculine aesthetic, which I wasn't sure I liked, so up a pin from Vroom Vroom went, and a little keychain lion stuffie that I got from Daiso.