love & madness & liberation

I lost my earring yesterday, the most recent in our long line of shared possessions. It brought me to tears. "So, it was like a memento?" my friend Richard asked when I tried to explain it to him in less petty terms. "Is the person dead?" No, I told him, so he came up with an elaborate scheme of how I could hide its loss from you for years so you wouldn't be mad. It isn't that, either, I told him. You wouldn't be mad. 

I tried to figure out why I was so sad, and wanted to think it was of love but wondered if it wasn't blatant materialism. Attaching sentimentality to physical objects runs in the family (z, even you can't say it doesn't get you too) but I try to suppress it when I can. 

I've decided to wear the earring by itself, and be a hipster. The cross-sections of a shell are cool together, but one is even edgier. And better I have you two than the memento to remind me.