A tale of two earrings

These are my earrings.  I love earrings.  I have roughly 582 pairs of them, but don't tell Finch, because I always want more.  I love earrings.  The bigger, the danglier, the sparklier, the better. 

But, since I became a mother, I have been often engaged in the search for the perfect pair of "Mom" earrings.  These are the realization of that search.  I have had them for a couple of years now.  I adore them, because they are perfect in my mind, for this season of life.  They're light, go with everything, and round, which means my hair doesn't wind itself into or around them and drive me crazy while my hands are busy guiding my children out of harm's way.  I wear them all. the. time. 

However, the reason I wear them constantly is different now than it was at first. 

I wear them because they talk to me.

They have a story to tell.

Several months ago, we were in the thick of a particularly difficult stretch in parenthood.  I don't remember the details, but both Finch and I were worn out with little grace left for each other at the end of any given day. 

On this particular evening, we were getting ready for bed.  We use our basement bathroom, so as not to wake up the kidlets.  The sink in this bathroom is quite small, so we wash our faces in the utility sink nearby.  Finch, a night or two prior, had made a passing comment that I should probably take out my earrings before washing up, because they could easily slip out in the process and end up down the open drain, which would likely wreak havoc on our 80-year-old pipes and wind up costing heaps of money to fix.  I of course rolled my eyes, said rude things to him in my head and ignored his concerns.

Like I said.  We weren't in a happy place.

So.  Guess what happened?

I wiped my wet mug off on a towel that night, went to grab my various bits of jewelry to corral before bed (because, what a trauma it would be to take it all off one step earlier)...and...one earring had decided to make a point.

I felt my foolishness immediately, and weariness, and knew the additional, unnecessary stress it was going to cause Finch.  And it did.  I could see him mentally tally the time and energy, unavailable time and energy, it was going to take him to try to fish that damn earring out.  And we both knew in our guts it was unlikely to even be a successful attempt.  A plumber would have to be called.  Lord have mercy on our budget.

So I prayed.  It's what I do when I don't know what else to do.  I asked Jesus to make that drain cough up that earring.  And quick too, if you don't mind.  He's done crazier stuff than this, I reasoned.  Please have mercy on a petulant wife. 

We went to bed that night defeated and deflated.  No more words were said.  It was the worst of times.

The next day, I had mountains of laundry to do, so I went about my chores.  It was a regular kind of day.  We were our usual variety of train wreck.  I forgot about the earring.

Eventually, it came time to get ready for bed. 

Here's what I saw when I reached to turn on the faucet:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

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It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

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It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

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It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

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It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...

~opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities