Everyone who knows me knows I wear a single AB Swarovski crystal drop on a silver chain. Everyone who knows me well enough knows that I wear it every day, and everyone who knows me better knows to avoid buying me jewellery because I've worn it every day since I bought it and little else. Some people know that I've worn it for eight years, from when I bought it in Venice.
The only thing about the necklace that has stayed the same over the years is the crystal: the chain has been replaced about five times, the clasp about six; I've even replaced the bail that loops the crystal to the chain. Even though the only surviving part of the original necklace is the crystal, I still view it as the same necklace. Like my watch (another item that's almost like a part of me), I put it on every morning on autopilot, not really thinking about it.
On Boxing Day, it went missing. I haven't seen it since.
I remember wearing it on Christmas Day, and taking it off with my watch when every time I opened the oven to check on my roast it heated up and burned me. I remember putting it on the coffee table with my watch. I don't remember putting either back on, nor taking either off before bedtime as usual, nor putting both on in the morning as usual. All I know is that when I came back from the shops on Boxing Day afternoon, I was wearing my watch, but my neck was bare.
I bought it in 2004, during my school's music school tour to Venice (I sang in the choir and played the flute in two other groups). We had a free day before a concert in the evening and were milling around the shops and markets of the city. In a shop full of trinkets and tat, there was a small stand on a table next to the checkout with a few odd necklaces going for a couple of Euros hanging off of it. Like a magpie, my eyes instantly caught the rainbow sparkliness of the single drop crystal necklace, and I bought it. I've always liked the rainbow effect of AB crystals (probably because my birthstone is opal) and around that time I was constantly wearing cubic AB crystal earrings, so this necklace matched perfectly. I ended up wearing the necklace long after I stopped wearing those earrings.
It was also around that time I had stopped becoming almost cripplingly shy and only a little bit shy. I had gone through the first few years of secondary school as quiet as a mouse, swinging from being unable to make friends to being in the middle of upsetting situations when I eventually did make them; more upsetting than your average teenager has to face (which can be tricky enough as it is). Now I was beginning to find my roar. Okay, so it was a quiet, almost apologetic roar, but still a roar. By 2004, which was when I was sitting my GCSE exams, I was talking to people more often. I think my necklace became a kind of amulet, almost like a lucky charm (even though I don't believe in them): something I subconsciously associated with this time of life and the gradual change in me. It symbolised that the bad and sad times were over, and that I was slowly but surely on my way up in the world: and so I wore it every day, only hanging it up to rest when ill, asleep or in costume.
I've lost it once before- it was about three years ago when I was still at university. I was heartbroken, and searched high and low for it. It turned up later in the day tangled at the back of my hair: the chain had snapped, and it and the crystal had luckily snarled themselves in my curls. I knew deep down I'd find it, though- quite often when I lose something I'll feel panicked, but if I'm liable to find it again I'll know at the back of my mind.
This time was different though: as soon as I went to twirl the crystal around my fingers- a habit I've picked up after the numerous years, and probably a contributing factor to my loss- and found it missing, I knew immediately: that was that. Maybe that's why although I was upset- of course I was upset- I wasn't heartbroken this time. I'd already accepted that one day I'd lose it forever when the chain finally snapped whilst I was out.
What has this got to do with the New Year? Well, it seems fitting to me that I should lose my amulet, my symbol of the New Me, days before a new year, and in particular this year- 2012 is the year of extreme ups and downs: my first heartbreak/ breakup with my first boyfriend (well... technically the second, but I don't really count the two months we got back together for after the first breakup); one of my closest friends getting married to another good friend; losing a total of two stone and feeling fantastic; the months of struggle to find a job; finding a job; going to Australia... many things and many more that have shaped me significantly yet again. I suppose I have changed again, because I also felt a weird relief at losing my necklace- there's no longer any sense of automatic obligation every morning to don my amulet. To sound incredibly melodramatic, I'm free from my past: because even though my necklace was a symbol of me changing for the better, it was also a symbol of the mud I had to wade through to get to that point.
I'm still nerdy and geeky, still a tad socially awkward* and still, at times, a smidge on the shy side (not always though- recently I went up to a total stranger in town to ask him why he was wearing a Banana Man costume to advertise online dating- hey, I really had to know**), but no longer a mouse.
So. New year, new necklace? I'm not going to get an exact replacement, and I don't think I'll ever have something that I wear day in, day out again. A shame opals are so pricey... I'd rather like a faceted Ethiopian welo opal (hint hint, for any randomly generous and wealthy passing reader! A girl can dream, right?) In the meantime, I do need a new everyday necklace I suppose. My magpie senses are tingling...
A very happy new year to you all- here's to all the changes that make us, us. Let's made 2013 amazing!
* As is apparent in almost every post in this blog- although I have a feeling being British has a lot to do with it, too
** He told me miserably, 'My manager told me it'd attract more attention.' Well... I suppose I can't fault that.
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