Finally a grownup?

Like many youth, when I started university I bought a backpack from my school. If I was a snail, then that backpack was the shell on my back. I carried everything in it. Textbooks during the week. Changes of clothing on the weekend. Aside from regular school and life duty, it also became my official carryon for all travel. Any trip I've taken since the fall of 1995 (with the exception of Australia/NZ where I took just a backpack and so needed a bigger one), whether 2 days or 2 weeks long, that backpack was with me. Stashed into overhead compartments of countless planes and buses, shoved under seats of trains, through in the back of an endless number of cars, that bag has been everywhere I have.

Tomorrow I leave on a business trip. Unlike the last one, this time I need to bring a laptop. So I got a new big bag that has a laptop slot, is tailored so it's businessy enough but is brown leather with bright pink stitching so it's still fun and funky. I'm excited about my new bag. But the bitter part of the bittersweet hit tonight. I won't be taking my backpack. It has to be traded in for this briefcase like thing. And then I wondered how frequently the bag would have to be traded in on future trips. And the grownup bag would have to appear more often. The beginning of the end of an era.

One small change of bag. One giant change in life.