if I don't look, it isn't lost

I’m not the most imaginative person when it comes to personal accessories.

For instance, I’ve been wearing the same necklace for the last 8 years. It’s a really beautiful gold chain The Kids’ Dad gave me for my birthday along with a pretty little black hills gold heart that my Mum’s dearest friend gave me. So… put it on, never take it off, permanent accessory. Same goes with earrings. Mum gave me the most lovely pair of double-twined gold hoops that I’ve been wearing for the last 5 or so years. They’re really pretty, go with everything, put ‘em on and forget about ‘em.

But that complacency has come back to haunt me.

I lost another earring the other day. It’s the second one I’ve lost from my left ear in the course of the last two weeks. For some reason they have been falling victim to my headphones. Note to self: pull earphones away from ears then remove, don’t just drag them off your head.

I was really bummed when I lost my first earring, one of Mum’s gold hoops. I’m pretty sure it happened in the middle of the night because when I woke up the next morning, the earring was gone.

I am something of an insomniac and often get up to fiddle with the internet in the middle of the night, checking e-mails, the forum, my blog. The headphones come into play when I am listening to recordings that get sent to me.

The reason I’m not sure when it happened, is that don’t regularly fiddle with my earrings so I couldn’t say for sure when it disappeared, only that it was not there when I woke up in the morning. I do remember, though, struggling a bit when my headphones snagged in the middle of the night. The only thing for headphones to snag on would be earring or glasses, and it wasn’t my glasses they got caught on.

SO- somewhere around my bed is that pesky earring. I looked a bit and haven’t found it.

For ten days or so I’d just switch the remaining earring I had back and forth (just in case the hole closed) chuckling to myself that I had something of a pirate look going and waiting for somebody to notice. It’s amazing how people either don’t care, didn’t notice, or couldn’t be bothered to comment on only wearing one earring.

Really makes me realize that we really are the star of our own personal drama that isn’t being watched by anyone but ourselves. Probably the most important thing to help a teenager realize… nobody else is watching! :-)

Anyway, I finally got tired of the one earring show and decided to just switch. I checked my earring collection and it really is crap. Mostly singles left over from previous times I’ve lost the mate. I still have one of my original studs that were used to pierce my ears and a mish mash of badly tarnished ones that really should be pitched. I did find my really pretty gold leaves so decided to give them a go.

The problem is, they are not stud earrings they are decorative earrings. What that means is that they don’t tolerate being tugged on or even normal, everyday life, for that matter. You’re supposed to wear them for dress-up and then take them off when you get home. I just can’t be bothered with that much activity in the bathroom and just left them on.

So I’ve lost the left earring on that set too. *sigh* Same situation, remember futzing with the headphones and them getting snagged then later noticing the missing earring.

The weird thing is I found the back to the earring sitting next to my laptop. But I thought the snagging took place out in my car…. or was it in the entry way by the door… or maybe it WAS here by my bed.

I was excited to see the back of the earring and really hope the leaf shows up too.

But I’m afraid to look too hard for either earring.

Do you know why?

I’m afraid to look for them because, right now… they could still be around some where. But if I look for them and can’t find them, then they really are lost. Right now, I just don’t know for sure where they are. I can still hope to find them. Maybe they’ll just turn up. But if I look, and they’re not there, then I’ve really lost them.

I wonder if that isn’t how some Christians are when they are confronted by atheists. Maybe they are afraid that if they put their faith aside, even for a moment, to rationally consider the atheist’s arguments against god, that they will look for god and not find him. They want god to be there so badly that they refuse to peer around those corners and to look under the bed because they do not want to discover that god just isn’t there.