July 2007 archives

Four years ago, I wrote a piece for BUST magazine, right around the same time I'd purchased the necklace. The theme of the issue was "The Dark Side" and I'd already written something small for them and, on Wendy's advice, pitched them an idea for a piece of my own. I sent them a draft and it was accepted for the Fall 2003 issue.

(You can read it here, here, and here.)

To this day, I still have the email Debbie Stoller, BUST's editor-in-chief, sent me upon completion of the piece where she told me, "just so you know, i think your piece is the best one we have in this issue. it's just perfect. thanks." To this day, I still think it's one of the best things I've ever written.

In it I mention that I stole, my mother stole, to fill our respective voids. Years of therapy later, I've come to understand that while I may have stopped stealing Hello Kitty pencils, I've still been walking around with a pretty big void. My methods by which to fill it have mutated over the years, but it hasn't been too difficult to figure out that the eating, the shopping, the excessive drinking at points in my life, the relationships, even the crazy career ambition have all been in service to not feel so damn empty.

Of course the problem now is identifying why that void is there in the first place and why I feel this overwhelming need to fill it at all. Shit happens to people, to everyone, to varying degrees. We're all damaged and flawed, with all of these holes that are the result of something painful. I am not unique. I am not special. And, for the most part, I'm becoming rather convinced that part of the whole thing is that sometimes you can't fill the void. Sometimes you just gotta live with it.

I am trying to live with the void. To stop fighting it so much. To just let it be.

Two weeks ago I cleaned out my jewelry box and stumbled upon the Tiffany necklace. This probably comes as no surprise, but I haven't worn it in ages and truth be told, I only wore it a handful of times. Last week my therapist and I had this huge talk about money and its place in my life, and I mentioned that I wanted to sell the necklace, but that I felt weird about it.

"Someone should be wearing it. But I don't. I wish I could, but I don't. No matter how much I try, it's just not me," I said.

"I think that's terrific. You should sell it. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of it," she replied.

This morning, I met up with a man in his mid-30s who agreed to buy the necklace after he saw my ad on Craigslist. I sold the necklace for a considerably lower price than for what I paid, but in the end, I cared less about how much I was going to get for it than I did for getting rid of the damn thing. I still felt weird and guilty and strange, and, admittedly, a little trashy, for selling it, but I was glad someone else wanted it.

We met at the Starbucks in my neighborhood and while I was prepared for a quick, terse exchanged, this lovely man, a bit frumpled, a little weary around the eyes, sat down next to me and began to tell me that the necklace was for his wife. She's past her due date, and they're both very worried and anxious, and he wanted to do something nice for her before she has their baby.

"This is really her taste," he said excitedly. "She will really love this."

Before I knew it, he was talking about how nervous he is, about how everything about this world makes him nervous about bringing a kid into it, about how he and his wife have been at odds and on edge, and generally speaking, just rambling on and on to me, this complete stranger.

"My dad always says that you raise the sort of kids you'd want to be friends with," I told him, not sure where all of this advice was really coming from as, hell, what the fuck do I know. For some reason, I felt as though I had to say something to him. "Maybe you just raise them with enough compassion and intelligence and courage that when the time comes that they're confronted with everything in this crazy world that you've armed them to make the right decisions and they'll be OK in the end."

He smiled at me and said, "You're probably right." But then he just went right along to another topic. Talking and talking. I don't think it mattered what I said at all.

We sat there for a half-hour, me listening to him, and by the end, he said he's going to send me pictures of their nursery. "It's all Disney-themed," he said. As we walked away, he shook my hand and thanked me again, profusely. He said sometimes just talking to a stranger is a little like therapy for him. Then he told me that he was on his way to get the necklace engraved for his wife, before she woke up.

"She's sleeping on the floor," he said, sadly. "It's the only place she's really comfortable right now. Poor thing."

The necklace has a new home, and I still have the void. It feels a little smaller, but I suppose it's still there.

For now, that's OK.

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