senior moments

walking out of the building to grab lunch today, i reached my hand inside a pocket of my purse to grab my cell phone. doing so, i brushed against the earrings i had stored in there last night, and then remembered i had put my ring in there, too. after putting my earrings back in, i started searching for the ring. i couldn't find it at first, but no surprise, because i keep my purse in approximately the same state of cleanliness as a teenaged boy's room. but the second go-around i couldn't find it either. a five-minute full-on purse excursion while standing, frantic, in the middle of the lobby failed to reveal it to me.

i was particularly freaking out because this ring holds great sentimental value to me. i purchased it in greve in chianti over three years ago when i was staying with charles' family. it's a large silver ring with an amber-colored oval stone in the middle; i bought it for 50 euro, down from 55, knocked off so because the shopkeeper said i spoke italian so well (well for an american tourist, anyway). basically i've had it on my finger for three years straight. i think it's a unique, beautiful piece of jewelry - the only one i wear consistently - but it's also a reminder of that trip, and my time in italy in general, and the wine and the food and everything from the manic weekends spent racing from trains to buses to taxis, to the days spent lounging on islands in the mediterranean. its weight on my hand is always a comforting reminder of that amazing year.

anyway, so. i freaked out. i started immediately cataloguing all the places i could have left it - t.'s apartment, maybe i threw it out with all those gum wrappers in my purse pocket this morning, maybe it somehow slipped off my hand when i was biking in the rain to school. but while i was hurriedly thinking, i also somehow knew, instinctively and immediately, that it was irrevocably lost.

then i took a big sigh and tried to blink back the tears, and as i brushed my hair out of my face, i realized that the ring was still. on. my. finger.

you never saw that one coming, did you?

i remember when i was in middle or high school, there was an evening at home when my mom was sitting on the couch, bemoaning the fact that she had lost her glasses (again), and i walked in, and pointed out they were on her head.

"dude. i am NEVER going to be that scatterbrained," i remember thinking.

but yet, here i am, at 26-almost-27, and i've apparently got the brain of a senior citizen. fantastic.

Comments

[susan]

Aw, you crazy old loon, we love you anyway. (glad you still have the ring!)

[Naomi]

This reminds me of living with Jessie. I think she stuck her keys in the fridge once.

[Peter]

"Haha, that reminds me of you." -Danica, to me. It also reminds me of the time I misplaced one of my Dad's favorite classical CD box sets. I left to go back to Whitman, and later that day my mom found it in the fridge next to the orange juice.