008 - phantom limbs
i've never really been good at wearing jewellery. part of this is just motivation - i've never been super into it, as much as i would maybe like to be the kind of person that is, and i don't really own any of my own accord, which means most things i own are gifts, and have their own set of memories attached. most of it is definitely just physical. i'm a little particular with which physical sensations i like, and while i don't think i hate the feeling of a chain around my neck or a ring on my finger it's still something that i've never put the time i need to into getting used to.
even so, despite these warnings, people dear to me will still occasionally give me things, accompanied with the promise that "it doesn't really matter" and "i never worse this anyway", and i will probably wear the item for a few days and then put it slightly out of sight and slip out of the habit, as quickly and easily as i slipped into it.
the last time this happened was a few months prior, a person in my life quite dear to me found an old ring of theirs, and gave it to me. i wore it for a few days, took it off one night, put it among the detritus that usually covers my desk at home, and when i woke up the next day it had left my mind. exactly the same as it always is.
and then the other day, a very good friend decided to clean up my desk, and i found the ring again. i put it on, around my first finger instead of my ring finger, since it fit there better now, and wore it for a few days again. yesterday, i put it down on my desk, and then today, i didn't really use my desk, and thus never saw it and never put it on.
and yet? i remember it. i remember it enough to be writing this now about it. i got a message from its original owner this morning, and i touched my middle finger and thumb against the spot where it would be, and i felt it. even now, i feel it there - i feel its absence, every time i take my hand off the keyboard and go to poke it, every time i move to tap it against something, every time i hold hands with a friend. its absence feels almost as strongly as its presence does.
it's easy for me to get lost in the thought of the future. the possibility, the certainty that things are going to happen in my life that the me in the present is not able to imagine. that none of the things in life are permanent, that in a few months or years the situations and people in my life could be totally different. it reassures me a little that even after two days, i can still feel the mark of my small and admittedly quite pretty ring.
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