A Little Sparkle in My Life

I love finding things I thought I had misplaced. I no longer say, "oh man, I lost that" because I know it will mostly surely be found, and generally when I least expect it. I find that the harder I look the less likely it will turn up. So I don't worry and let it come to me in its own due time. In fact right after high school I finally had a car that was all mine to drive. This was huge for me, so what did I do, I started "personalizing" it with my stuff - wallet, food, papers. At some point about a third of the way through the summer I realized I had misplaced my driver's license. No big deal - it will turn up. Two months later it still hadn't turned up and I am still driving without a license. It was getting to the point that I needed to get going to college, so I figured it was a good time to acknowledge that it was lost and put some serious effort into finding it. In my search I sheepishly asked my father if he had seen it. He replied in the affirmative and went about heading to his dresser to pull it from its hiding place for the last two months. Supposedly this was to teach me a lesson about leaving such items in full view in my car, and supposedly he was shocked that I hadn't gotten around to asking about it earlier. No doubt a lesson worth learning, but I thought his method a little sketchy.

Fast forward a lot of years to the Sunday before Christmas. I decided that if ever there is a time to wear bling to church it is Christmas Sunday. So, in honor of my mother (who is all about sparkles) I donned my sequined top (don't worry, it is lovely and not at all lounge-act appropriate) and my sparkly earrings. It had snowed that morning and as we were driving to church I realized the back of my earring had fallen off and my earring was missing. I looked in the car but didn't find it. No big deal, I thought. It probably fell off on the way to the car. I'll get it when we get home. Sometime while we were away being good God-fearing people the snow plow came and cleared our parking lot. Sort of. They don't clear it so much as push all the snow to one corner of the lot into a big mound. I hoped that the ring was in there somewhere and that when the hill of snow started to melt it would turn up.

Now fast forward a couple of months to a few days ago. I was walking home from something and I noticed a soda can in the berm and started cursing those darned litterers and wondering if the can was fresh or had become unearthed with the warmer weather. As I leaned in to get a closer look I found my earring!!! It totally made my day and gave me renewed faith in my belief that everything turns up - even keys that have been missing for so long that you end up rekeying your house. Yep, behind my desk at work.

Exhibit A - my sparkle

Exhibit B - The Berm (with aforementioned soda can)