The Gold Hoops

These are the gold hoops I’ve been wearing the last few weeks. They’re kind of plain, but I loved them from first sight. Lord, it was a journey to get them! They started out at $800. I watched sales, collected rewards, and waited as the price went down. Finally, when they were somewhere between $200-$300, my bestie said, “BFF, get them earrings. What are you waiting for? You gon’ let ‘em sell out.”

I will gift, gift, gift, but I hate buying things for myself; well, I feel like purchases for myself have to be thoroughly “justified.”

Anyway, I got the earrings.

And I’ve been wearing them! But keeping track of the price and sales and rewards was not the only journey I took to these earrings.

You’re probably saying to yourself, elle, what’s the point of this story? Millions of people put on hoop earrings everyday.

Yeah, I know, I know. I used to be one of them. The bigger the better. A colleague asked me did they hurt. A friend teased me about liking car rims in my ears. I mean, I loved my hoops! The slot that you use to close your car door used to be full of earrings on the driver’s side of my car; I’d pull them out after work and change into some more.

Then, around 2018, a major depressive episode hit me. And I don’t mean for a few weeks. I was laid low for years. Stopped wearing jewelry. Stopped caring about how I dressed. Stopped leaving the house. Stopped leaving my room except to let in the deliveries I needed to survive. The pandemic shutdown that came a while later, that so many people hated, and that we’re realizing had so many negative effects? I was so happy for it. Not the virus, of course, but having an excuse to isolate, for my world to shut down further, was a strange kind of relief. Some of that needed justification, I guess.

Late in 2021, I decided to try to re-join the world. Shortly thereafter, I started having the first symptoms of CIDP, knocking me right back on my butt.

And somewhere along that sad timeline, one of the piercings in my ears closed after forty-something years! I didn’t know that was possible, but it didn’t matter to me for a while. I’d make vague plans to get it re-pierced with Arielle, who’d lost an earring and had her piercing close, too. And then we lost her, and I truly didn’t give a damn about earrings anymore.

Then, something started to shift finally. Talk therapy and a medicine regimen took effect when I’d given up on them ever truly working. I found myself in stores buying earrings (and necklaces and bracelets). “I’ma get my ears pierced,” I announced to anyone who would listen.

My family members just nodded; I’d been saying that for a while. Then one day, when Kizzy and I were on one of our many medical misadventures, I decided to stop at this piercing and tattoo shop. And I did it! I got my ears pierced! Eight weeks later, I slid in my gold hoops. I’ve been wearing them ever since.

Now, you might feel like I just wasted five minutes of your life. You may have circled back to the question of “What’s the point to this story?” In that case, move along—this long-winded musing is not for you.

But if you’ve ever been in a low place where you seemed to have lost your interests, and your purpose and you finally start to feel like yourself again, even just the tiniest bit…

Then I hope you didn’t mind reading about a not-so-plain pair of gold hoop earrings. 💜