Diamonds.

At the beginning of 2019, my mother gifted me a set of simple, plain diamond stud earrings. I think she had bought them for herself many, many years ago and never wore them because she’s like that. I actually tried to decline the extremely nice gift because I thought I could never wear them as well because, knowing myself, I was destined to lose one of the earrings. I told my mom, I’m going to lose one of the diamonds if I wear them and she pressed the box into my hand and said – no, wear them, it’s ok if you lose one of the diamonds.

So I did wear them. I bought some locking backs for them and I wore them 24 hours a day – through the pandemic, through all the elastic ear masking/unmasking which was hard on them and my ears and though I thought they were a bit extravagant for my taste at first, grew to really love them. Once when I was shedding a mask in the shower stall of a public pool, I felt one of them yank off and skitter across the tiled floor, I ended up looking for it couched nakedly in a public place and I triumphantly found it a few feet away not at all close to the drain.

One I fingered the stone during a dinner and noticed that it was loose from its setting and wiggling like a 6 year olds baby tooth and got a jeweler to tighten the setting.

Last week, I touched my right earlobe and noticed that the stud was gone and I spent all afternoon looking around the house for the missing stud and I did find the backing on the bathroom floor but could find no sign of the earring anywhere. And then I took the other earring off and sighed a big sigh and said that 4 years was a good run and tried to figure out when was a good time to tell my mother. I figured I lost the earring in the bathroom and it most likely went down the bath drain (I usually only take baths unless I’m at a public pool).

Then I thought maybe I should replace the earring (because I finally had to admit that I liked them and missed having them) and also maybe then I would not have to tell my mother that I lost the diamonds she gave me. So I looked at many diamond earring websites, looked at lab grown diamonds vs mined diamonds. Looked at the process of making lab grown diamonds (with Jeremy on his phone and then it instantly and automatically turned his Instagram feed into all diamonds all the time) and I was almost about to buy a replacement set, but honestly, couldn’t stomach the price for something that literally does nothing but sit there and sparkle because I’m like that.

But yesterday, I was on the phone and while I was talking, I decided to empty a little sewing trash can that is hanging from my office desk. I have a little sewing trash can on my desk because sometimes I sew at my desk to keep my hands occupied during long zoom meetings. Anyways, I found the diamond earring in the little trash can! I have no idea how it got there so far away from the backing that I found, but I was so happy I interrupted Jeremy during a meeting in which he was talking. He said – I knew you would find it. Anyways, I’m happy to have the pair again in my ears.