and my heart stopped...

i never knew my father's sister. rather, i have no recollection of her. supposedly we look very much alike in complexion, height, features, texture of hair, etc... she died of cancer when i was very young and lived with us up to the time of her death. she and my father were very close and supposedly i was also quite attached to her as a baby.

on my 9th or 10th birthday, my mother gave me a pair of gold bracelets that my aunt had bought for me when i was born. they had been too big for me as a baby and so, i had never been able to wear them. from that age on, i wore my gold bracelet proudly. a symbol of my connection to the aunt i remembered in my heart. somewhere along the way, my mother began wearing one half of the pair, while i kept the other half. though i never thought much about it, the fact that we both wore these bracelets that were one of few connections to my aunt meant a lot to me. further, it connected us as mother and daughter.

i grew and the bracelet remained on my wrist. when i entered high school, my phys.ed teacher threw a fit one day as we were not supposed to wear jewelry. i had tried out for the basketball team and had been informed that once on the team i would have to remove my bracelet for games. i went back into the locker room and made the attempt to remove my precious bracelet. it snapped in half and i was devastated. that weekend, my mother took me to a jeweler who was able to fix it and i happily placed it back on my wrist. the decision was made, my bracelet would never leave my wrist again. no basketball team for me, and as for phys.ed class...i opted to wear long sleeved shirts to hide the fact that i still wore my bracelet.

fast forward to the year 2005. present day.

aside from that one incident in high school, this bracelet has not left my wrist in over 16 years. all the jewelry i wear on a regular basis is silver or white gold except for my bracelet - a constant on my right hand.

then last night, while out at a restaurant with friends. my bracelet got caught on something and snapped in half again. it separated into two halves and rolled into hiding.

let me tell y'all i almost shut that restaurant down. i made all activity stop and had everyone up in there searching for my bracelet. i found one half and the waiter insisted that they would look for the other half at the end of the night. but i was not having that. it took almost an hour, but i finally located the other half hiding behind a plant.

relief.

but i woke up this morning feeling naked. my right wrist felt lighter than usual.
i've fingered the broken pieces hourly, just to ensure that they are all there. as i mentioned, before last night the importance of that bracelet had never really weighed on me. that time in high school that it broke was not even close to the panic i felt last night when i was presented with the possibility that i might not have been able to find all the pieces. at first the friends i was dining with were thinking i was searching for it because of it's monetary value (since it is gold) but when i finally found it and sat back down holding both pieces with relief and i explained the history..they seemed to understand.

i had spent the week formulating the events that i had to blog about. attending the madlib instore appearance. the stress i'm dealing with at work. my dissatisfaction with work. my drunken partying last weekend and the adventure of my drive home. gay pride weekend in toronto. missing out on soul kitchen last night because i was searching for my bracelet. the fact that krs one is an amazing speaker. how dope that lauryn hill mixtape really is. my relationship with my former best friend (or lack of). the fact that karla homolka is about to released from prison and i'm convinced that someone will try to assassinate her. and lastly my upcoming trip to trinidad to attend a family reunion.

but this was definitely more important.