the diamonds of life

My parents gifted me three diamond earrings for my 21^st birthday years ago; not because I have three ears, rather when I turned 18 I “rebelled” and obtained a second piercing in my upper left ear. That day I exercised my newly found right as an 18-year-old and signed myself out of school, went for lunch with a friend, and got my ear pierced again. Oh I felt soooooooooooooo cool. My mother noticed right away and loved it. It took my father two weeks to note the new metal at the top of my ear. Regardless, we had a good laugh and at 21 I opened the box where three beautiful diamonds were poised, ready to be worn. They have been my steadfast companions when I need a simple decorative accessory for work or play. They have seen me through undergrad, post baccalaureate, medical school and the transition to residency. They have traveled with me to foreign countries and moved with me to my various living quarters over the years.

I returned to my San Antonio apartment 2 months ago, following a particularly draining day, whipped off my scrub top and bottoms, pulled on my sweat pants and shirt, and commenced with reclaiming my evening. Not until the following morning did I noticed my right diamond earring was gone. I was already late for rounding on patients, so I did a hasty search, came up empty and took my self pity and sadness over having lost the diamond to work with me that day. I started wearing other sets of earrings that dangled a bit too much. Slowly, though, I let go of the desperate desire to find it and resigned myself to the notion I would need to replace the earring I had so clumsily lost.  I kept rushing about as this stage of residency demands; moving as quickly as humanly possible without letting too many details fall to the wayside.

Then, one Saturday morning, which I was fortunate to have off from work, I lazily got out of bed, was slowly moving about my day, my body fighting against the weeks of chaos my muscles carried. I pushed a vacuum over the carpet in my closet hoping to capture a hint of normalcy, when a sparkle caught my eye. I bent down and there nestled in the carpet in front of my dresser was my lost diamond earring. The back was not with it, but at the time I didn’t care! There it lay – where it had obviously lain for months, frustratingly torn from my ear then hidden in the carpet escaping the desperate search and finally revealing itself in a calm moment of cleaning. The back made an appearance a few minutes later, about a foot behind where the earring had fallen.

At the time, and now, I struggle with making decisions, trying to control my chaotic life, fighting for any indication that I have made good decisions in life and reassurance that I am where I am supposed to be, or will get direction on where to go if I have navigated off the path. Perhaps, however, this journey is like loosing and finding the earring. I gave up my desperate wild-eyed half hazard search and surrendered my self-loathing for having been so careless to have lost this gift. In letting go and slowing down it came back to me. It was found after I stopped trying so hard, after I loosened my grip and kept living each day.

I still do not have great answers for many of my life questions; specifically if I am where I am supposed to be or doing that which I was made for, however I am reminded by this earring that answers will come in their own time and I simply need to keep showing up, letting go of things I cannot control and be present for the moments and decisions that need my attention. In that space beauty is revealed and gifted; I need not flail about perplexed by the chaos, rather embrace the now with hope that the answers sparkle all on their own when I refrain from forcing their existence.