Fuck

When my mother died, she had over 300 pairs of earrings. 300. I am not joking. She bought a pair every time she went shopping, and friends and family brought them back for her as souvenirs whenever they traveled. I gave most of them to the battered women's shelter when she died, but I kept the souvenir pairs, the heirloom pairs, and the pairs that I knew meant something to her. None of them were really anything I liked, but I liked having them.

After going through my mom's jewelry recently, I saw a souvenir pair (I think from her brother) of real Japanese maple leaves dipped in silver-very touristy, you've probably seen something similar. They weren't too bad, and I was sick of wearing the same earrings every day because I recently lost an earring my son had given me for my birthday. (which broke my heart, by the way-this becomes important later)

I wore the earrings to work, and work friend complimented them, and I thought "Wow, they are cute. They will join regular rotation"

I lost one today. I lost one of my dead mother's earrings. I felt bad enough when I lost one of the hoops the kid bought me for my birthday, but that felt nothing like this. I cried AT WORK. IN FRONT OF PEOPLE. I had everyone help, and we searched the bathroom, the warehouse, my office, EVERYONE'S office-work friend and I even retraced the steps of our lunchtime walk. No luck.

This is the second earring I have lost in a month, both of them very important to me. I think I will start buying cheap Wal-Mart earrings so I don't care if I lose them. Or maybe I will switch to necklaces.

Whatever. FUCK.