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As I was driving out towards LAX this morning, I realized my necklace was not on my neck. As best as I could while still on the road, I checked places it would have fallen to if it'd just come off; no luck. Must have lost it earlier.
This necklace actually started its life as a keychain, bought for a few francs at the D-Day memorial in Normandy, in the summer of 1998. It sat around forgotten until the following April, and the Columbine shooting, painfully close to my high school. I'd recently acquired a very cheap chain and pendant, and since I had the Memorial pendant that was about the right shape, I attached it as well, and started wearing it as a token. (The other token I took to was a small pin of a columbine, on one of the straps of my backpack. That, too, is still there.)
Once I got back to the lounge, I checked around the sofa I'd slept on for the end of the morning. I remembered putting it on before leaving the apartment; maybe the chain had broken and it had slipped into the cushions. No luck. Maybe I was making things up and hadn't put it on, after all.
The chain was claspless, and not quite long enough to fit over my head, so I raided my dad's workshop for some extra chain. All I found was some dull steel links, but the extra six inches made it possible to get on and off without rebending every time. I clumsily linked the pendant to the middle of that, so it would at least wear symmetrically, and went with it. I only took it off to sleep or shower; it hung otherwise from my bedpost or chair or something.
I got home tonight, and checked if I'd forgotten it - no, its spot was empty. I frantically wend back out and gave the car a more thorough search, to no avail.
Sometime during my senior year of high school, I got sick of the long, dangly, heavy chain. I dug around in odds and ends that I had for an actual clasp, and a few extra rings. When I was done, the pendant sat snugly at the top of my sternum, with the clasp at the back of my neck. Rather than having the chain as a single piece, with the pendant dangling as many necklaces do, the chain was in two parts, each one linked straight to the pendant by a ring somewhat more sturdy than the chain itself. I've worn it in that form ever since. It'd been a part of me for six years, and I had no idea where it might have broken and fallen. If it was gone, it would be irretrievable, and one of my last few links to my past, one of the very few tokens I allow myself, would have been gone. It was a very overwhelming thought.
As I plodded back inside and looked around a suddenly very uninviting home, my eye fell on the necklace, discarded on the carpet next to the recycling. The rings and chains were unbroken - I was simply so unawake when I tried to put it on this morning that I'd missed the clasp, and dropped it without noticing.
Maybe they're done with this building, and I'll get a decent amount of sleep.
click
This necklace actually started its life as a keychain, bought for a few francs at the D-Day memorial in Normandy, in the summer of 1998. It sat around forgotten until the following April, and the Columbine shooting, painfully close to my high school. I'd recently acquired a very cheap chain and pendant, and since I had the Memorial pendant that was about the right shape, I attached it as well, and started wearing it as a token. (The other token I took to was a small pin of a columbine, on one of the straps of my backpack. That, too, is still there.)
Once I got back to the lounge, I checked around the sofa I'd slept on for the end of the morning. I remembered putting it on before leaving the apartment; maybe the chain had broken and it had slipped into the cushions. No luck. Maybe I was making things up and hadn't put it on, after all.
The chain was claspless, and not quite long enough to fit over my head, so I raided my dad's workshop for some extra chain. All I found was some dull steel links, but the extra six inches made it possible to get on and off without rebending every time. I clumsily linked the pendant to the middle of that, so it would at least wear symmetrically, and went with it. I only took it off to sleep or shower; it hung otherwise from my bedpost or chair or something.
I got home tonight, and checked if I'd forgotten it - no, its spot was empty. I frantically wend back out and gave the car a more thorough search, to no avail.
Sometime during my senior year of high school, I got sick of the long, dangly, heavy chain. I dug around in odds and ends that I had for an actual clasp, and a few extra rings. When I was done, the pendant sat snugly at the top of my sternum, with the clasp at the back of my neck. Rather than having the chain as a single piece, with the pendant dangling as many necklaces do, the chain was in two parts, each one linked straight to the pendant by a ring somewhat more sturdy than the chain itself. I've worn it in that form ever since. It'd been a part of me for six years, and I had no idea where it might have broken and fallen. If it was gone, it would be irretrievable, and one of my last few links to my past, one of the very few tokens I allow myself, would have been gone. It was a very overwhelming thought.
As I plodded back inside and looked around a suddenly very uninviting home, my eye fell on the necklace, discarded on the carpet next to the recycling. The rings and chains were unbroken - I was simply so unawake when I tried to put it on this morning that I'd missed the clasp, and dropped it without noticing.
Maybe they're done with this building, and I'll get a decent amount of sleep.
click
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