Dear Suitcase,

Today, you finally broke. There, on my bed, with a sigh and a nod, you breathed your last breath. Before I take you out to the garbage I just wanted to say a proper thank you for the last 12 years of service. I bought you for a mere 30 Euros from TK Maxx in Hamburg, Germany. You never let me down. Until now, that is, but after all this time and all these trips I can’t really blame you for throwing in the towel, or rather, the zipper. I bought you for one simple reason — you fit the Ryan Air carry on luggage restrictions. Since then you have become my trusty fellow traveler, the storer of all my tiny travel things and liquid bottles that held 100 ml or less. You’ve taken me all around Europe and back home to Canada and on trips to the U.S. 

Unpacking you for the final time has made me stop and think about this past decade of my life. You have been in my life longer than my husband. Surely, this means something. You were German made. You lasted longer than any cheap carry on bag had any right to and you took me on adventures great and small.

I’ll never forget our trip to Stockholm. Spur of the moment. No real plans. I landed in the outskirts of the city and traveled for two hours by bus just to get there. Oh, the joys of discount air travel. I was hosted by two South American women in an Airbnb in a suburb outside of the city. It was all I could afford. They were friendly and left me breakfast and black out curtains that blocked out most of the Scandinavian summer sun.

I met up with friends from Hamburg who had come on a family vacation with their kids. I partied with my cousin’s friends who took me out for the night on the town. We biked the streets of Stockholm at three in the morning and didn’t even need lights. I got a cold and spent a whole day sitting by a beautiful lake that looked so much like the lake I swam in as a teenager. I felt free and uninhibited. The rhythm of my day was dictated simply by how I felt. I had no real plans and meandered through the city lost and found all at once. 

You joined me for 10 days in Italy with another Canadian expat. We visited my Italian relatives just outside of Venice. They fed us platters of fresh Parmesan and took us to a vineyard owned by their friends where we ate so much food and drank so much wine that I was seeing triple. After that we rolled out of there and straight into a food festival. All in one night.

In Milan we found the best pizza of our lives. We loved it so much that we came back to the same restaurant at the end of our trip. We watched music videos in our hotel room and were shocked by Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” video which had just come out.

In Cinque Terre we stayed in an adorable three level pensione that had a door so narrow that I’m not sure I’d fit through it now. We ate fresh tomatoes covered in balsamic vinegar, topped with fresh basil and mozzarella. We made friends with a friendly local bartender who, when he heard we’d never had a real Bellini before, made us fetch the peaches from our room and proceeded to make the freshest, most mouth watering Bellini to end all Bellinis. He refused to charge us. I spoke to him in broken Italian and he grinned with pleasure and told all his friends, “this Canadian girl is from Calabria!”

We hiked the trails of Cinque Terre and heard hellos in more languages than I could keep track of. We spent a day on the sun bathed rocks at the bottom of the hilly town of Corniglia. We splashed in the ocean and recharged our batteries after a long and dark Northern German winter. We ate more pasta and gelato in those 10 days than I normally do in a year. 

We dipped our toes in the ocean on the beaches of Rio Maggiore and took photos of each other looking like rich retirees on an over sized speed boat that served as transit between towns. We made a trip that looked expensive cost us next to nothing. We shared a narrow room with twin beds, and made meals in our pensione and bought local fruits and veggies from the farm stands. I was a freelance English teacher just making enough money to get by. I cut my own hair, shopped at the cheapest stores and thrived on 3 Euro bottles of wine. I couldn’t afford many luxuries but all my extra money went to these trips. 

We traveled to East Germany together to visit my friend’s family. We saw the cracked ruins of communism in the walls of the buildings. We watched Eurovision for the first time in their living room and to this day I’m still not sure I understand it. I tried to communicate in my broken German and we laughed. We drove to the nearby Czech Republic where I ate the best potato salad of my life, made by our German hosts, on a bench outside in a park. We saw a German motorcycle gang drive by wearing safety vests.

Do you remember that we we even went to the Olympics together? We stayed with my cousin Polly in South London and saw Olympic volleyball and field hockey at the 2012 Games. We took photos with the mascots, wandered the streets of London and basked in the international crowds. Later we drank cheap wine from an off license, ate crisps and English biscuits. 

We were even lucky enough to come back and witness Polly and Marcia’s civil union in a quaint library near Picadilly Circus. We celebrated their love and ate delicious food. The restaurant-made Rollos will forever stand out in my mind. Later we celebrated their union becoming a legal marriage. 

We traveled to my German boyfriend’s apartment where we lived with him briefly before moving home to Canada. We watched Futurama together in German and went to the Hamburg Fish market at 5 am, totally sober. We drove to Denmark together and saw the most incredible array of kites on a sandy beach on the flattest stretch of land I had seen since I drove across Saskatchewan. We drove the Autobahn in a French car with wine glass holders and seat massagers at 200 kms an hour. 

We made our final goodbyes to the wonderful people we met while living abroad and ventured home to Canada, where I felt like a stranger in a strange land. We survived reverse culture shock. We survived break ups. Too many ferry trips to count. Sleeping on a friend’s couch for two weeks. We started a new job and found an apartment. We began to make a life for ourselves here. I met a man. We had romantic getaways together. Soaked in hot tubs. Said I love you. Eventually got married. And made too many memories to count since then.

I tug on your broken zipper one last time. Feel the bright pink and lime green ribbons that I tied around your handle to distinguish you from other black suitcases. Laugh at the pocket that would never close where we once found my husband’s wallet after six months of thinking it was lost. Letting go of you feels like letting go of a piece of myself. A piece of my life that I’m not getting back. I replaced you without a thought, ordered a cheap Amazon bag that so far has no character. Not nearly as many pockets. It hasn’t seen what you’ve seen, hasn’t been where you’ve been. It hasn’t seen me through one of the best and most tumultuous decades of my life so far.

But, I have to say goodbye now. Don’t forget me. The me that carried you. The me that has now weirdly reached middle age. Twelve years older, but still ready for another adventure.