The morning of the day my apartment was broken into I decided on a whim to take off the gold cross I had worn nearly every day since I was twelve and to put on a silly star-shaped necklace instead. That evening, when I noticed that all of my jewelry was gone, my first thought was “damn, I wish I had worn a different necklace today”, because all of the ones that had meaning for me were probably already melted down (along with my class ring and the handful of other items I had of any value) and I was stuck with this dumb star choker with the gold plating chipping off.
Today I put that necklace on for the first time in almost a year. In a testament to my own irrationality, every time I looked at the thing I became angry at it, as if it was the fault of that necklace that so many things that had accrued meaning and experience over time had been taken from me. I wish I could say I have gained some perspective and insight about the triviality of objects, but I haven’t really. I haven’t taken my claddagh ring off in a year, because if anything happened to that I would probably give in to despair.
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