Decades ago, I got a third piercing. (My first two were done way too low on the lobe by a neighborhood GP born in the “old country” whose bubbe wore her French wire earrings dangling low). I chose a tiny gold star, which would remain there no matter what adorned the other two holes. I moved up to an especially tiny (.1 ct) diamond stud and accumulated quite a collection of fashionable studs & hoops (with assorted dangles). But one day I was late for court and discovered to my chagrin in the restroom that I had one tiny stud and two obvious empty holes. So I vowed to switch to earrings I could wear to sleep & in the shower so I’d never again go out with naked lobes. Pearls were out—too delicate to withstand soap & water. Turquoise & silver? The sterling irritated & inflamed my holes & lobes. So I turned to diamond studs. Over the years, due to those too-low-and enlarged holes, I began to mislay one or the others. Gritted my teeth—the “orphaned” one replaced its tiny predecesssor, and I bought 14K “Levears” large backs to prevent the regular screw-and-friction post backs from pulling the studs forward, falling forward through the holes. For special occasions, I swap out the studs for more ornate ones—but come bedtime, the studs go back in. No more inflamed (or—ugh—green) lobes, no naked ears.
1
I loved this article and particularly the comments, many of which are so relatable. I still look at my singleton earrings and can remember where I lost the other - but most of the time, have been able to find the errant one because, like so many, have crawled over rugs and stairs and car seats to find.
Sweet stories.
6
I was a senior in college and my neighbors were having a holiday party. We were all very casual so the thought of dressing up seemed fun. I wore the Pearl studs my aunt had given me. I spent the night with one of the hosts. He was tall and thin and had longer than mine. Once I got home the next morning, I realized I lost my Pearl stud earring. I was mortified, but needed to see if I left my earring at the party. Low and behold, my Pearl stud was in my hosts bed. I never found the back to the earring.
2
I once lost a lovely carnelian scarab earring. Ended up having the surviving earring made into a necklace drop. Problem solved.
1
I've lost so many I cannot count them all. Some were 14 karat gold and my particular favorites. Now, I often just wear non-matching earrings -- one of each of two pairs. Most people do not even notice, but if they do, I just tell them that they are still favorites of mine and since I've lost one of each, I've combined them to make a different kind of statement. It makes me happy to wear them again even though they don't match!
5
There's a wonderful jewelry company called Silver Forest who will replace a lost earring if you send them the remaining one, if they still have it in stock. I lost one of a favorite pair from them (you invariably lose your fave because you wear them so much, right?)...they sent me back a complete new pair plus my remainder, so now I have a spare! I've always said earrings should be sold in sets of three.
2
There is worse:
1. Losing earring #2
2. Finding it later, miraculously
3. No longer finding earring #1, unfortunately
4
Yes, I too have morned the loss of many an earring. I could never bring myself to discard the "single, looking for its mate"... One day browsing thru pictures of family and friends gatherings, I noticed you rarely see a person 'full frontal'. So I took to wearing my mismatched, although similar in size earrings. Then moved to be more daring. Studs and dangles! A strange feeling happened. The mourning ceased and I regained pleasure from wearing them again.
4
In 1955 my mother loaned me her screw-back garnet earrings, a gift to her from my dad in lean times. When my date for the high shool senior prom drove me home I discovered I'd lost one. We scoured my date's car, the school gym, the ladies room, the ice cream shop booth we'd gone to after the prom. No luck.
I'd crushed the grown-up feelings I'd had wearing the earrings, and couldn't bear the grief I saw in my mother's eyes.
Months later, I happened to glance down as I walked to my parent's car parked in the driveway, There it was, tucked safely amongst the bluestones of the driveway! The screw back was intact and the garnets were still unscathed in their setting.
14
I bought a pair of dangling earring at a small museum, They were made in such a way that it was impossible for them to come off. Wrong--they came off the first time I wore them. But I was lucky. I was able to contact the artist about making a new pair for me. I wanted only one, but she only makes pairs. So now I will have an extra one in case I lose one again. Maybe earring should come in set of threes.
6
So, you probably can't replace the lost earrings, but you can prevent future losses. I sadly lost one of some earrings that my children made for me, but I then discovered earring backs, and I haven't lost any earrings since. You can get them by the bag full at Amazon, and they cost like $3. I wear them religiously.
2
Loved , loved this article as it depicts exactly how I have felt upon losing an earring that means so much to ME ! One particular earring is part of a set that accompanies an unusual Cameo from my cold and aloof grandmother. It’s not because it was hers, it’s that it is so rare and I have nothing from her. She told “ many stories” of her life that are hard to prove but was a strong and powerful woman. Now I will write to the NYC place mentioned in the article and hope to replace the earring !! Thank you so much !!
2
What a happy surprise to discover I am not alone !
I lost an earring somewhere in North England on a road trip from Edinburgh to London. It didn’t have a particular sentimental value but I loved it. I wrote to the two pubs we had visited and the AirBnB, but nothing showed up.
I mourned by not wearing earrings for a few months. Now I see I wasn’t crazy to do so.
2
I have been in my own stage of grief having lost a hoop from my favorite pair! I to this day, can not wear any jewelry, I feel so undeserving! I am not sure it can be replicated as they were made by a close friend. I am so gutted!
1
The best revenge against earring loss is a good jeweler! Props to Brown Goldsmiths’s in Freeport Maine for recreating my single diamond paisley earring into a ring! It’s beautiful and I love it and no longer have survivors guilt over the singleton! Another one was turned into a pendant I now wear on a gold chain.
2
Every year I pull out my little Christmas tree decorated with single earrings and strung with broken link bracelets. If a mate ever emerges from behind the dresser or under the bookcase, I'll be ready. Meanwhile, another bit of sparkly seasonal cheer.
7
I have no piercings but I once had to give up a lockback pocketknife (a keepsake of my father's) at a TSA checkpoint. It brought on a mild bout of materialistic grief. I imagine this feels like that.
3
I’d been running errands all day, so when I found that I’d lost one of the gold hoops I’d gotten for Christmas in 1996 after our puppy ate one of my old ones, I had no idea where to look. I started a halfhearted search for a replacement pair.
Six days later, I was walking the hound, we were about a half mile from the house. It was sunny and warm after a rainy couple of days. The hound dragged me across the street and busied himself sniffing for who knows what, I looked down to make certain I was not stepping in who knows what (it’s a busy dog corner, fire hydrant, small shrubs, and stop sign) and I saw something shiny, half buried in the sand. I bent down and picked it up, brushed the sand off and thought, “Oh, it’s an earring.” Then, “Wow, it’s gold.” Then “Holy cr*p, it’s my earring!”
It was unscathed. I don’t know how, at this very busy corner, no one had walked on it or ridden their bike over it, the rain hadn’t washed enough sand over it to hide it...it was just there. I thanked the hound for pausing in his walk at that very spot, I tucked the earring in my jacket pocket and we headed home.
10
I bought a pair of earrings on my honeymoon from a Native American selling his wares on a blanket in the main outdoor courtyard in Santa Fe. While the traditional native jewelry styles didn't suit my style his did--a sleek asymmetric simple silver piece with a single paw print cut out at the bottom point. I loved them. A couple years later, one disappeared, I knew not where. Many years later, divorced and vacationing in Santa Fe with my family, I wandered hopefully to the main courtyard--and there he was! With his beautiful wares and style intact. I am now the proud possessor of three lovely earrings.
32
I read this piece and all of the comments a couple of hours ago. I’m now sitting in a darkened music club, and just felt and somehow saw my earring fall to the floor, then found the earring post and back still in my lobe. One of those days, I suppose!
5
James Avery allows you to turn in your lone earring and buy a new pair.
I too have searched the floor, the sofa cushions, and many other places for a missing earring. My best find was a stud that fell into the cuff of my slacks!
2
I have a beautiful small box on my bureau into which I place the singleton earrings. Every once in a while, I peer in and reclaim memories!
5
While in Paris on a trip that was in part an escape from grief over an overwhelming loss in my life, I lost an earring from a favorite set that my husband gave me. I searched the hotel room and told hotel staff, but it really could have detached from me anywhere in Paris. I am still heartbroken over this loss, and I'm sure it was compounded by the personal loss I had already experienced, plus just feeling terrible for losing part of my husband's gift. My husband attempted to get the jeweler to make a single one for me to match the orphan, but they only wanted to sell another two as a set. So that single earring sits lonely in my jewelry drawer. I understand where the writer is coming from! We love what we love.
6
I am astounded that this is a "thing". How totally unimportant and insignificant can it get? Sheeeesh.....
I’m with you. Good grief...
Right on point!! This article made my morning:)
I've lost so many earrings and shed few tears about them. The loss represents so much about them: past lovers, cherished memorabilia, and thinking how many charm bracelets and necklaces of "the lost ones" will I have. I think it's especially worse when the day has gone awry. It's just the last thing that you need :(.
Thanks for this piece!!
6
I've lost countless earrings over the years; therefore, I got an extra hole pierced in one ear and I sometimes wear the singlets that way.
4
I recently lost an earring in Union Square San Francisco. As I was bent over scanning the sidewalks, 3 other women recognized what I was doing and immediately joined my search. One woman found someone else’s lost earring back. And then I was explaining what my earring looked like to a kind stranger with an amazing braided hairstyle. Mid-sentence, I found my errant earring! I’ve lost five other earrings though over the years.
4
Lovely to have a haven for singles!(earrings). Let us start a trend: asymmetrical, non-matching earrings and socks! I too have attachment to my widowed earrings...
3
The problem with most US made earrings, even gold and hem ones, is that they have a simple push-throughout back whichever easily opens in a crowd or when you change clothes. Gold earrings made in India traditionally and still mostly come with screw-on backs so they simply cannot fall off.
2
My husband gave me a lovely pair of diamond studs for Christmas two years ago. I generally don't wear fine jewelry (I'm a klutz). But this pair was as you described, with screw-on backs. Perfect, right? Nope. I wear a prosthetic hand and it was impossible for me to put them on myself. So the beautiful earrings went unworn for nearly a year before I gathered the courage to go back to the jeweler and tell my story. He happily switched out the backs to the traditional style. Then sheepishly asked why my husband wouldn't have known that when he bought them. I laughed and said, "I guess he just never thinks of my hand at all." Now I wear the earrings all the time. but of course am back to fearing I'll lose one. But I figure, better to have loved and lost and all that....
4
I think part of the angst stems from 'losing' the challenge to keep the set together.
And don't get me started on how odd it feels to pair an earring with a different back if you lose one of those. So subtle, yet--like a paper cut---so intense and noticeable.
2
I was thrilled to see the title of this article. I lost one diamond earring a few years ago and placed the other in the box with the other singles. Then about two months ago, I took it out and put it in the hole in my right ear lobe. I've been wearing just the one earring for months now. No one notices. No one comments. My hair-do does conceal it most of the time but I expected to have to explain to someone that I decided that wearing one beloved earring was perfectly legitimate. Not even my hairdresser mentioned it. I am very happy to wear this one until I some how lose it. It feels great. I suggest it to anyone who doesn't give a damn what other people think. Ha! I am living in Montana - maybe we have more leeway here on things like that.
4
My sister gave me a pair of Silpada earrings one year as a special gift. Several years later she died so they were like treasure to me. I lost one of them and went so far to contact the company for a replacement, but they had been discontinued. Eventually I cleaned out my car and found the missing earring. I now only wear them with backs but this was a little miracle for me! Thanks for the story!
4
I had a sterling bracelet with a single charm. I never added charms and wore it rarely. Now it has about 7 "charms," each a solo earring that meant a lot to me. I don't wear it often, but it is comforting to be able to enjoy them as jewelry again.
2
One thing that would lessen the possibility of lost earrings is if makers would stop making earrings with a wire without some type of locking clasp. I see many earring that I like, but I refuse to buy any without a secure clasp, like a eurowire. Those horrible rubbler barrels aren't worth a darn.
1
My very first mother's day present 32 years ago was a pair of delicate pearl studs, and I loved them.
Of course, inevitably, I lost one of them somewhere in a shag-carpeted two-story house. After I couldn't find it, I mourned because it was my son's first gift to me, even if he was far too young to understand it.
He had a funny habit when he was still crawling around: he had a special place on a kitchen shelf where he would put stuff that caught his interest if it was small enough to carry in his tiny fist.
About a year after I lost it, the lone pearl stud found its way to his shelf of interesting things.
I felt doubly blessed - he found it, returned it to me, and he didn't stick it in his mouth and choke on it when he found it.
12
I have lost a number of just-one earrings over the decades and I am sad about them too, but that's not what I want to write about. I want to ask if anyone can identify the song I heard years ago about how it will be when we're dead and are reunited with, among other things, our lost earrings? I recall it as a funny but also poignant song. Thanks, maybe!
4
“Why are you only wearing one earring?”
Is my favorite April Fools joke.
7
I've solved this problem -- no pierced ears, no earrings to wear, thus no earrings to lose. Voila.
1
I now believe that when we die there will be a cardboard box holding those special things we lost during our lives. I will then see that earring I lost in 1982 (among other things). Lol. Sort of religious, yes? Lol.
7
Yes! The box will be presented with all the jewelry and important things I'd lost in my life (including my 1st and only pair of diamond earrings from Tiffany's for which I punched an extra set of holes in my ears). That's how I know I'll have made it to heaven
3
When my son was two - 46 years ago - we would buy a long, bumpy balloon when we did our grocery shopping. He would happily play with the balloon until it inevitably broke. He never cried or got upset when this happened.
One day I asked him why he didn’t get upset.
“It’s a balloon” he said.
When I lose a favourite earring, I repeat to myself, “It’s a balloon.”
Beauty and joy flash like the sparkle of a diamond or sun on water or perfect snow. It isn’t meant to last forever. We know balloons don’t last forever. We don’t expect them to.
So why cling to sadness and disappointment when we lose an earring? They come and go. Don’t dull the beauty and joy they gave by replacing those lovely feelings with sadness and disappointment.
Next time you lose an earring, say “It’s a balloon.”
Sometimes the earring comes back to you. It’s all magic.
79
@MJM I learned decades ago in a training to become a Hospice volunteer to use these small losses to train for the BIG ones. It's a great way to look at it.
5
I use my orphans as ornaments on a small tree in my dining room, and as charms also.
6
Wonderful story, just loved reading how feelings of loss are shared, as we remember each earring purchase, gift or stage of our life. Stories of love and loss. One earring from a pair I got married in was squashed on the road by a car after it fell out while crossing. I backtracked and found it, crumpled and sad. My marriage had already ended but I kept it anyway, a memory...and beautiful silver craftsmanship.
I recommend being careful with scarves around your neck - I’ve knocked out many earrings this way, some of which clung into the scarf and I found them after a frantic search!
3
I went to a band party last week and risked wearing my beloved original McGovern pin. My sister volunteered for his campaign in '72 as a teen. Darned if it didn't slip off somewhere during the evening. I still hope it is hiding in our car. But getting a replacement would simply not be the same.
1
@vandalfan
I have a "Publishing People for McGovern" pin. My first job was working at Prentice-Hall in '72. A fond souvenir of the times.
2
I have a pair of handmade silver-and-semi-precious gemstone earrings in the shape of Buddha's left hand and his right hand. Once I went to a mall store, tried on an article of clothing, bought a pair of socks, and looked at some makeup. Got home. Right earring gone! I called the store manager; no luck. The mall was about to close. I raced back, retraced my steps, and there it was, just under a case in the makeup department. Ever since, I only wear them with tiny, tight plastic knobs on the back.
5
I actually read this as The Five Stages of Hearing Loss. That would be worth reading.
7
Such a great and surprising article. Great because so many people found they responded to the feelings the subject laid bare. Surprising because I learned why lost things seem to reverberate far beyond their intrinsic value.
Like these other commenters, I had my own "Remembrance of Lost Things." Thank you for that, Nancy Wartik. In particular, I thought of a pair of diamond earrings my late husband gave me when our first child was born--46 years ago. At the time we could not afford that extravagant gift--though it wasn't expensive by most standards even then. Unbeknownst to my husband I went to the jeweler hoping he'd take the earrings back. "We can't afford them," I said. He looked at me. "Someday you'll be glad you have these," he said.
He probably had a store policy. "No returns." At any rate, I kept those earrings and wore them--with time, more and more happily. My husband loved to see them, and they became my favorite possession. After he died, I became afraid of losing the earrings, too, so I wore them less and less often.
Reading this article and the reader comments made me realize my foolishness. If I don't bring these wonderful, sparkling, exuberant earrings out into the open for myself and others to see, then I've already lost them.
16
Thank you for the link to the lost earring Facebook page! I have a pair of FOUND silver drop earrings. Both were lying side-by-side on carpeting outside of the front door at the office where I used to work. None of the staff in my office or in the building claimed them. But I've held onto the pair in the hopes that I will reunite them with their owner someday!
3
Thanks, Times.
As fascism barrels toward us, you print a piece about lost earrings.
As I said, thanks for nothing.
1
I thought you said “the five stages of HEARING loss”!
5
no substance here. i thought author would shed some light concerning the shrinkage of the ear lobe and loss of collagen in the ear. too bad.
I’m forever putting something important “in a special place so it won’t get lost”. Then spending weeks trying to remember where I put it.
Years ago I went on a business trip with my husband and took some good earrings to wear to a fancy dinner. When we got home I could not find them anywhere. I looked and looked and finally decided I must have left or lost them in the hotel room. Months later while getting some stuff ready to donate I found them. I had wrapped them in tissue and stuffed it in the toe of a shoe so it wouldn’t get “lost in the luggage”!
(Sorry, A bit off topic but better than any of my own lost-one-earring stories)
5
I’m a jeweler by trade, and my favorite part of my job is repairs. Far more than custom design, repair work comes from the heart, my client’s heart, and then mine. People don’t bring things to be repaired unless they are beloved, and meaningful, and it’s my pleasure and privilege to restore to wearability people’s little treasures, whether they are worth a fortune or worth less than the cost of the repair.
My advice to people who show up heartbrokenly clutching one earring is to have the other made into a pendant. This doesn’t work well with hoops, but most other styles lend themselves to the transformation-yes, even studs. If needed, new materials may be added to the heart of the old piece.
Don’t give up! A sympathetic and creative jeweler will do what she can to help.
And one last thing...if you have a cat, never count anything as lost until you’ve looked under the radiators in every room, under the dishwasher, into the cracks of the skirting boards...there is no such thing as “But it can’t POSSIBLY be in [x]” when a cat is involved.
9
Whenever I read an article about devastation (a fire, a tornado, a flood, etc.) that causes the loss of inanimate material possessions, it always bothers me when the loss is dismissed because “it’s only things.” Yes, of course, the lives of humans and animals are greater tragedies, but that does not mean that a material loss is nothing.
Material items are made by living human beings, and material items often serve as keepers of precious memories of living moments.
An artwork represents the many hours of diligent work that a living human being put into creation. An earring (whether expensive or cheap) brings to life a memory of heartfelt love or a powerful personal experience.
Why is loss so painful? It reminds us that life is short and fleeting and mysterious. The angst of material loss comes from its haunting poignancy. Where did the earring go? I do not know. When will I go when I die? I do not know either.
12
Thank you! An article that perfectly describes the emotions and stages I have gone through when losing earrings! I have all the singletons clustered in a little section of my earring rack, isolated, ostracized, and yet still adored. I can tell you the story behind each one coming into my life, and departing from it. And now I know I am not alone.
3
So true!! This is why when I was in Sicily buying a special pair of pearl and coral earrings I only looked at ones with leaver backs! I never worry about loosing them. I’m getting smart in my old age.
3
Walking to a restaurant in New Orleans (just off Bourbon Street), I noticed that one of my great-grandmother’s three-tiered ice blue earrings was missing. I was in a panic. My husband and I retraced our steps. Each time I walked over another giant grate in the sidewalk, my heart sank lower and lower. And then, after about a 15-minute walk, there it was. In the middle of the sidewalk, where it could have been stepped on and crushed, or picked up. My first thought, as I took the other one off and tucked them into my husband’s suit pocket, was, “Thank God I don’t have to tell my mom I lost one!”
5
Is there website for people who are trying to replace unique buttons? If you know of one, please provide information.
I lost a button from a jacket I bought at Liberty House — the store mentioned earlier in the article on lost earrings. I, and many others, are still mourning the loss of the wonderful store!)
2
Read that a shadow box can be used to mount single earrings and other little odd items that have sentimental values to us and hung on the wall. This way, we can look at them everyday. After reading this article, I am motivated to gather my lonely singleearrings and little trinkets to arrange in a shadow box. Allow them to see the light of the day.
2
First world problem. Meh.
3
I have been adding lone earrings to my enormous earring grave yard (oversized box) for almost five decades. I have spent countless hours searching for the other. I have retraced my steps so many times that I started to track these wasted steps via the app on my phone. I tried every kind of magic backs to no avail. I clearly lose more earrings in the winter due to scarfs & turtle necks & other layered clothing. Although, I have sweated it out in the warmer weather days as well. If I were creative as many folks are, I am sure I could make unique jeweled pieces. Though, I know my designer genes are limited, I still amass a huge solo collection. I was quite enamored to read this piece. In a strange way, I am comforted to learn I am not alone in my obsession to be hopeful I might locate the missing one of each pair! Thanks for this.
3
Years ago, I lost a beloved earring while bending forward to admire an ornament on a Christmas tree at the home of my then-boyfriend’s relatives. We were just passing through their town on our way home, mindful of the snowfall, so there was no time to search for it.
I was bereft, as it was one of a beautiful antique filigree pair that I found in Greece during my travels there. Irreplaceable. Needless to say, since then, I’m very careful around Christmas trees....
2
I once was waiting to get on the parking tram at Disneyland and as the incoming group was getting off the tram, I saw something glint and hit the ground. I walked over, picked it up and saw it was a beautiful diamond earring. I turned to the departing crowd and shouted, "Did anyone lose an earring?" A young woman turned with a look of horror on her face as she grabbed both earlobes. Sure enough, it was hers - disaster averted in the nick of time!
25
Depending on the style of the earring you can turn it into a necklace pendant. I have done this more than once with dangling earrings...
5
This article is delightfully well written and relatable. That being said, these small losses of everyday life are best shrugged off. “They are just things” my wise mother would say. Move on. Be grateful. She was right. I actually hate wearing earrings and haven’t for years......problem solved.
15
OK for you to say, but right now I'm about to tear apart the house to find the Kindle charging cable.
9
@P R Ah... The Art of Losing isn’t hard to master...
2
I cannot tell you how many times I finally threw out the lonely singleton only to finally locate its mate...and end up with a second lonely singleton.
19
About 14 years ago I lost a small diamond earring. I searched the whole area but couldn't find it. It meant a lot to me because I had saved up my own money to buy those tiny but real diamond earrings and loved how they looked. After years of vacuuming and cleaning, assumed it was probably accidentally vacuumed up and thrown out at some point. Suddenly last year, out-of-the-blue, after not doing anything different and hadn't been cleaning - BAM! There was my tiny diamond earring sitting in the exact spot that I lost it. As if it had time-traveled from back then to today. Sometimes earrings do come back to you.
113
@Paula That exact same thing happened to me with a diamond stud. Vacuuming. Right there in the carpet in the threshold of the closet door—where I'd vac'd many times before.
4
@Paula @Suzanne Incidents like these make me think we really are living in a kind of (prank-loving) matrix..!
7
@Paula I am praying mine returns to me!!!
1
Oh my, I can identify with this. My husband brought me a pair of pearl drop earrings from Harrods in London. I lost one of them, in the snow, in Minnesota, never to be seen again. I was heartbroken. But I make jewelry, so I ordered pearls that I thought would match and made a new earring. It worked so well that I can no longer tell which is the “real” earring. But I know that one of them is a phony, and they will never feel the same to me. It really isn’t about how they look, it is the sentiment that cannot be replaced.
7
In my waitress days at a nightclub one of the women proudly wore new diamond earrings from her husband at a show we we working on Christmas. She lost one. We shut the kitchen down and everyone one crawled around on their hands and knees until we found it. The show was late that day.
12
Let go of earthly desires, in order to free your mind and to perhaps achieve enlightenment.
2
A lovely article. I, too, have stories of earrings irretrievably lost - still grieved for, years later - and improbably found. After the last earring-esque-apade I decided to wear two backings: the usual one that goes with that earring and then a small, tight plastic one that fits on the very end. I recommend it.
9
@JL
Yes, I now wear tiny earring keepers--little white foam ones and clear plastic ones. They certainly help earrings stay in place!
3
I like the comments about turning lone earrings into a pendant or bracelet. Along the same lines: My mother left me, her only daughter, her wedding rings. Only problem: they were white gold and I didn't like white gold. I was 28 and unmarried when she died, so they went into the jewelry box, thinking I could always use the diamonds when I married. At 48, I was still single and they were still in the box. Then I got cancer and had a horrific year. I told myself if, after my last chemo and last check said I was all clear, I'd take those rings to the jeweler and have a ring made for myself. On the day I got my "all clear," I went straight to the jeweler, designed a fabulous gold ring with her diamonds, which I have worn every day for the last 15 years.
You can always find something to do with jewelry!!
21
@cz Not only does the ring remind me of her love every morning when I put it on, but also of being a survivor, and getting through the worst thing imaginable. I, however, could kick myself for letting the rings languish in a jewelry box for 20 years, before wearing my mother's diamonds. Showed me that you need to live in the moment a little, not constantly waiting for the "right time" or "right event" to use what your parents left you.
16
Well, you can always gift the earring to a male friend who probably only wears one earring.
3
In the second hole of my double-pierced ears, right now I'm wearing the starter studs I got when my ears were pierced at age 10. I often wear them when my life feels out of control - for some reason I'm comforted by the fact that they have been with me for almost my whole life, even though I wasn't always wearing them. Since my husband died a year ago and one of my kids is now struggling with major depression, I rarely take them out. It never occurred to me until reading this article that there were other people in the world who felt an inexplicable, irrational reliance on two tiny pieces of metal.
13
Oh Charlie, I hope your child gets the better of his/her/their depression and that the pain of your husband’s recent death subsides. I’ve long since lost my starter studs, but I get comfort from several other talismans. And from what’s become my comfort meal: Cream of Wheat with maple syrup, and a small glass of Scotch on the rocks.
3
The people who clean out the interior at my car wash have been great at turning up several of my lost earrings over the years.
2
Took me months to realize that I wasn't losing my mind, just earrings. Two foster kittens were knocking them off the jewelry stand during the night, and sending them down the bathroom drain. Years later, these 'foster fails' continue to jump onto the counter and look for hanging toys!
8
I had endured one heartbreak too many. Thought there must be a product out to avoid future bereavements. There is. A new product called LOX earring backs . . . ingenious invention that LOCKS post earrings onto your ear. They are pricey, about $15 for two sets on amazon. But you can't lose them, and if you swap them around to any pair you wear, a very wise investment indeed.
7
I have lost so many earrings while traveling (on a crowded NYC subway and at the Taipei 101) that for a while I stopped bringing my favorite ones on overseas trips. But then I decided I just buy earrings as a souvenir whenever I go to a new place. I love how each pair comes with it a story of a place I visited.
10
This article came just when I lost an earring that was not valuable but had many memories. I doubt I’ll ever find it-it fell off somewhere between an Uber and an office building. The idea of making a charm bracelet or necklace with orphaned earring nags gives me inspiration.
6
Years ago, I lost a gold hoop that I really loved. It didn't turn up and after at least six months, I received another set of similar earrings for Christmas. Sure enough, a day or two later I found the earring in the cat's water dish! It had never been there before. That little devil must have squirreled it away all of that time!
5
This article brings back so many memories of my reaching up to an ear lobe and then, in a horrified gasp for breath, I realize that another precious earring has been lost! In my bedroom drawer I have a little gold jewelry bag filled with lone surviving partner earrings. I keep them in the hope that someday their match will come back to me. People really seem to get the sense of lost that occurs when an earring goes missing. I’ve asked co-workers to join me in a frantic search of the lobby of our office building for a lost earring. Yes, one of my work sisters spotted it on the floor near the elevator bank. Once, while out having breakfast on a Sunday morning with my husband, I let out a yelp across the table as I realize that I’ve just lost another earring. I then dove under the table, got on all fours & started patting the floor hoping to recover it. After a few minutes, I gave up, resigned to my lost. Then as I return to my seat, a young, biker-type guy at the table next to us, jumps up and approaches us saying, “I got this. I think I see it.” Next thing, he’s under our table reaching for my lost earring.
13
I say we start wearing mis-matched earrings. I am working up the courage.
14
That's what I do! It's fun to mix 'em up and most people never even notice.
3
I lost a beloved rose gold diamond hoop a couple of years ago while on a visit to my hometown in New Jersey. Together with my childhood friends, we searched the bar where we had cocktails, the parking lot and the restaurant where we had dinner to no avail. I have a feeling it was lost in the bar as there was a lot of hugging seeing old school friends. I prayed to St. Anthony...nothing. The other earring sits in my jewelry box alone and forlorn.
5
Lost earrings will always have a home with me since I have multiple piercings in one ear (four, including a cartilage piercing). I love coming up with combinations of earrings based on shape, size, color, with the other ear having just one that matches.
I never leave home, however, without plastic stoppers on all earrings that need them, and there’s a box of new backings on my dresser if an old one starts to feel loose.
If I do lose an earring, or find a stray that has no chance of reuniting with its owner, I make them into charms or necklaces.
5
i totally get this. last fall i lost one of the gold ball earrings i wore every day--my first jewelry gift from my late husband.
it took me until the the middle of february to buy a replacement--i kind of felt disloyal about doing anything to replace them.
BUT i lost it in the house----so it might turn up smile
7
Given that it is not that easy to take a picture with both ears included, it might be worth giving a little more thought to the beauty of asymmetry. Sure, we move our heads, and it is noticeable if we look for it, but maybe we should have our expectations blown (by the fried egg droopy earring paired with the diamond stud).
6
@ted I sometimes make earrings that are deliberately mismatched but still a set - a red flower on a white background on one side, a white flower on a red background on the other, that sort of thing. I've never understood why you see that so rarely.
5
@Katy Probably more than 40 years ago I met a woman who had a large birthmark on one of her earlobes. People constantly let her know that she had lost an earring. If I recall correctly, she wanted to make a matching earring to go with it. One could read into that and say she was demanding symmetry, but I think I would interpret it as a quirky game she was willing to play.
I have different piercings on either ear, but each one has its own "centered" hole, but I can't remember ever putting on a matching set, but that may be a guy thing.
5
I have a happy ending tale:when I realized I had lost my ear-ring, I was bereft. I did even not know when where or how I had lost it. For this reason I did not even know where to start looking. Imagine my surprise when several days later, I find just the top of the ear-ring placed on top of a filing cabinet at work in a floor I did not even frequent!Thanks to a faceless and honest cleaning crew ! I was ecstatic. Was it broken? yes. Was it repairable? Yes and Yes. I gave it’s twin to the jeweler who added the missing part to the broken sibling, and now I have the pair. As a conclusion- were these expensive? Yes! They were Burmese rubies set in gold! Were they of sentimental value ? Yes! Extremely so! I guess I am lucky! I now check my ears frequently . Reflexively and obsessively! Can’t think of going through this again!
14
I've taken two sentimental pairs to a jeweler to have screw posts put on them. Not cheap, but for my grandmother's diamonds and the first pair of earrings my husband gave me when we were dating and i subsequently wore at our wedding, a small price to pay for the extra security.
6
Helpful article. I am currently in the early stages of grief, having recently lost one of a favorite pair of fake lapis lazuli drop earrings. Every 10 years or so I buy a blue top or dress, and they never failed to match perfectly. I think I’ll spend Sunday going through my bureau drawers. I found the sole survivor today on top of the bureau. Crawled around (which is not so simple at 77). No luck.
10
I suffer from this illness. I have some additions to your five steps. I make lone earrings into a necklace, order a replacement earring, buy 1000 earring backs for my other earrings, use in it the extra hole I got on my left ear, or let it sit alone as a reminder of why not to wear scarves and favorite earrings at the same time with my wild, curly hair.
8
When I worked everything had to be matched and coordinated. I would always lose one. My jewelery box was filled with singles. Since I retired, I wear my singles and love it. Life is too short. Have fun!
9
I used to go through this regularly, and then I gave Amazon $5 for several hundred earring retainers, and now I always wear them, even if the one that was on the earring has fallen into the sweater drawer. I haven't lost a full earring since then, and it was two or three years ago.
6
I enjoyed this article. It brought back many memories of earrings lost and found. When I turned 16 I treated myself to a pair of delicate handmade sterling silver earrings shaped like sinuous S’s (both fronts and backs), with earnings from my first part time job. I wore them for the first time to a concert at the National Arts Centre and felt delight every time I reached up to touch them. Half way through the concert, I reached up and my heart sank. One of the back pieces was gone. After the show, my mother immediately went ahead to the car, somewhere deep in the parking garage, shaking her head, while by mutual agreement, my father and I silently and slowly retraced our every step, like a walking meditation... And after perhaps 20 minutes, against all odds, a little flash of silver appeared at the end of a riser on one of many flights of stairs. Incredulous delight! I still have them. I have no idea what the concert was, but that quiet walk with my dad, telegraphing his patience and willingness to seek with me the tiny thing that mattered to me, still brings tears to my eyes.
183
@Gatineau Hills My mom gave me a beautiful pair of large 18k gold hoops that I loved and wore regularly. One day as I got off the commuter train I realized I was missing one of them. I spent all day mourning the missing earring. That evening, as I was walking back to my car in the parking lot, my head hanging down in sadness I saw a golden glint in the dirt next to to car. It was my earring. It had been there all day and no one had picked it up!
17
Thank you for sharing this story about the tenderness with which your father treated you.
15
I had a beautiful pair of 1928 earrings. They were “fashion jewelry” but really lovely. I proudly wore them to a wedding and when I got home, the pair was gone. I looked everywhere, tried to find a duplicate pair at Macy’s, even contacted the company. To no avail.
Years later, I was going through a box of my daughter’s dress-ups: feather boas, outgrown costumes, cheap necklaces, and colorful handbags. Before dumping everything in a bag for Goodwill, I opened a small sequined evening bag. Too my delight, there were my earrings. Decades later, I still love them.
18
My father died when I turned thirty. As I went to sleep that sad evening, I took off my earrings and thought I put them in my drawer. I never found them again. I lived in my house another thirty years, and even when I moved they were never found. Somehow the loss of the earrings made perfect sense.
19
If I let the earring go, meaning I truly give up the possession to the universe, it always reappears. This has worked countless times. Once it was at my feet in a large garden after searching everywhere for hours. I finally accepted it was really gone and voila! It was at my toes. Sometimes it’s a few hours later (inside my bra), sometimes weeks later (under a copier).
The hard part is REALLY letting go. And you can’t think it will come back if I let it go. You REALLY have to be OK with it being gone. The universe can’t be tricked.
13
If this is your biggest problem, you lead a blessed life.
9
No one is saying it’s the end of the world, but we are human and it’s normal to be upset when you lose something you treasure.
8
A dear friend had been a model in NY long before we met. One night 30 years ago, out of no where, I asked her if she might have a loose earring I could wear. Being a hard core biker, I was always on the lookout for ONE exceptional earring!! She vanished into her bedroom, returning with a small very high-end gold and jade, exceptionally beautiful hoop ... which I am wearing right up to this moment!! It doesn't come off except to be cleaned and polished.
So what might you do with a single "survivor?" Simply give it as a gift to a person who wears only one ear ring!! You never know its value to the recipient. For while my friend is now departed from life, she remains alive and vibrant every time I look in the mirror.
146
@forgetaboutit How lovely! What could be a disheartening experience for someone can turn into a gift for another person.
3
Coming home after a day walking all over Manhattan, I realized I'd lost one of my 14K satin gold hoop earrings. They were the first pair I got for my pierced ears and I'd worn them for 47 years. Given the range of my walk, there was no way of knowing where the hoop came off. I decided it was useless to search and, bereft, decided I'd get a replica made at any cost. I never got around to finding a jeweler.
Six months later, I was cleaning the floor of my deep clothes closet when I saw a round object. Switching on the light, I tremulously confirmed it was a gold hoop earring. But wait--was that the one I'd saved in my dresser drawer? Had I somehow transferred it? I ran to check the drawer. One earring was still there! I was beyond elated.
The earring must have caught and pulled off my ear when, reaching to the back of the closet, my head brushed against a piece of clothing.
I now wear the earrings infrequently for fear of losing one again, but I'm happy just knowing they're safely in my possession.
12
It’s so interesting this article came up today!
I met with a small group of friends from high school today for lunch. I told them that I had lost an earring the night of our last class reunion. It broke my heart - sort of. Maybe because it was such a disheartening evening the lost earring topped it off.
Anyhow, one of my friends pointed to her left ear and said “Look! This is why I now have a third pierced ear spot - so I have a place to wear the earrings that have lost their partners.”
Wow. Contemplating getting a third piercing. That little gold earring who lost its partner at the crummy class reunion has sat alone in my jewelry box far too long.....
10
I lose earrings all the time. I also have hearing loss. I think because I need to be so careful not to lose my hearing assistive devices, I have no room left in my brain to be careful about not losing earrings. I lose sunglasses and umbrellas every few weeks as well.
7
I lost a very expensive and sentimentally-charged diamond drop earring once. As the author described, I turned the house upside down, to no avail. So forlorn.
FIVE years passed. My husband had a replacement made, and I was happy to wear it. Then one day, on her way out, my cleaning lady casually mentioned "I found an earring under the fridge." It was covered with fuzz and grime: she probably thought it was just some cheap thing of my young daughter's. I couldn't believe it!! Was my cleaning lady ever surprised when I gave her a huge hug.
14
As someone with hearing loss, the play on words is a little gross. I had a weird sensation, I clapped near my ear, my hearing was gone. Just saying, there are a lot of ways to write about losing a material item—an earring—without cutely rearranging words that describe a disability.
7
The real culprit of the lost earring is the lost earring back. After losing too many backs, and earrings, I gave up. The holes in my lobes closed years ago.
That said, I still have some singletons, including one of a pair that I bought from a cool shop in Park Slope in the ‘90s.
2
Great lead in. Expecting a story about hearing loss. LOL!
5
I have a college friend who has only one pierced ear. I had always kept my single earrings in a special box for her, even though we had fallen out of touch. One day, she hunted me down on FB, came to visit, and I finally got to give her a handful of 23 years of the single earrings I had kept. Everything from one handmade by a great aunt, to cheap costume jewelry from the mall, to a small diamond. She was thrilled, and I was so glad they went to someone who would wear them.
6
I change the clasp to a ring, then put it on a chain for a necklace. You need a 2nd ring to have it lie flat.
I currently am scouring Etsy for a white beaded coral thingy that i got in the Bahamas and am prepared to negotiate with craftsperson to duplicate my lonesome earring which I adore. Prepare yourself though, like a twin, it will never be an exact copy.
Good luck.
1
I'm a man who wears 00 gauge plugs. I have for 20 years now. As someone once remarked, "They're the the first things you notice when you walk in a room." True, not many men wear gauges.
But I don't lose that many. The secret is I don't change them that often. I have silver plugs designed by Tawapa that I wear every day. I put them on the dresser at night, same place, and put them in again in the morning. As plugs, they aren't fussy — I can work out in them, easily.
If I have a social event, I change out to something more bling-y. If I do lose one, I just order a replacement from Tawapa. Usually when I'm going through their online store I'll find a new design I'll try, and those might replace the once that have been my regular dailies for a couple of years or so. Yes, that is how often I lose an earring.
I also hate losing earrings, probably my favorite type of jewelry. What I have done is put two different single earrings on and when someone notices (which is not very often) I say, “ And would you believe it? I have another pair just like them at home.” It takes a bit of the steam out of the loss.
3
In the year after my husband and I split up, I lost an earring from each pair he had given me, one by one, with an uncanny inevitability. It was heartbreaking.
Then I slowly started to build up a new collection of my own. And I bought these silicone backs: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CJ6C6B2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
And I haven't lost an earring since.
2
Coming home after a nice evening with my husband, I happened to glance at my left hand. A chunk of my vintage wedding ring with two sparkly mine-cut diamonds was GONE! The ring looked like a person whose front teeth had been punched out. We tore up the car, the house, searched our building’s halls and elevators. I was bereft. No contemporary jeweler was going to reconfigure this. We called the restaurant and the music venue we had frequented but I knew they’d vacuumed it up. I grieved. I loved my wedding ring.
A few days later, out and about, my husband said we’d go to both places and look in person. I pooh-poohed his idea. I think I used the word “ridiculous.” I had emotionally disconnected as it was too painful to re-live the loss over and over. The teeny piece was not at the restaurant. When my husband wanted to go to the music venue, I protested but he eventually prevailed. We walked into the darkened theater, went to the seats where we had been. He took out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “There it is,” he said. “Nooooooh!,” I exclaimed. Yet, there the piece with the diamonds was, sparkly side up, waiting for me to reconnect with it. The feeling I had cannot be described in words. I was on cloud nine for weeks. A good jeweler made the repair, complimenting the original artisan from the early 1900’s. “This ring was a find,” he said. Yes, it was!
25
I have a great story to add. I went to a fancy trunk show where everything was triple my price range. I decided on the least expensive pair of earrings out of a sense of obligation! Flash forward a few months they are my favorite pair. Then, I lost one but thankfully the designer agreed to sell me a single at a discount. Then I lost the whole pair and of course, had to replace them again...a month ago (two years later) I found the old pair! So now I have a backup
10
Thank you for this timely piece. Just last weekend I finally took a single earring from a set my husband gave me before he died back to the jewelry shop he purchased them from. The lady in the shop pulled out a catalogue and we found the earring. She called the manufacturer but they no longer make this style. I will pursue some of your other suggested options as I really loved this particular pair. I also have one from a set lost on the drive back to NY from Chicago on Sept. 12, 2001. It was a very personal loss from that horrific time. Every time I look at that earring I remember the shock, the stench, and the immense loss to humanity. Perhaps a framed piece of all my single hoop earrings is in my future.
5
Having read this article early this morning, I was nervous about wearing my earrings today but decided that I was just being superstitious. Alas. I swear this is true. I am now in the mourning stage having lost a beautiful green crystal earring today, but, while looking for mine, I found an earring someone else lost! Maybe I will wear them together as Nancy suggested.
64
What a great article! I have many single earrings from over many years and find it difficult to part with them because of the stories attached to the original pair. Occasionally, I wear mismatched earrings just for fun and for the memories.
3
Thirty-five years ago, I lost an antique silver earring on the streets of Rome, near the Pantheon, en route to the Porta Portese flea market. Ten years later my vintage sterling Taxco earring flew off my ear somewhere in the North Beach area of San Francisco. Just last fall, fleeing the Kincade wildfires in Sonoma County, California, I managed to lose BOTH exquisite hand-crafted onyx earrings I bought in San Miguel de Allende. If any of the aforementioned are found, please contact me immediately. Hope never dies.
12
I sell second hand goods, and frequently buy used costume jewelry in bulk. While there are many earring pairs in a lot, there are always many more single earrings. I keep them together and when I accumulate a full bag, sell them for crafters to repurpose. You are not alone!
6
This is my story and Nancy Wartik has made it a song! I spent last week mourning the loss of one half of a pair of earrings my partner gave me for a birthday a few years ago. Not only mourning but shamed by having been careless, mindless ( I’m a mindfulness teacher). And fearful that I’m not competent to take care of myself, my things. Hounded by memories of all the lost earrings, the stupid decisions that led to their loss, the bad luck that knocked a few out of an ear as I pulled on a coat, or yanked off a scarf....Like Nancy, turning my apartments upside down, combing trash and garbage bins, reproached every time I saw the earring widow in a dish on my dresser. Sad! Then: I looked down at the carpet in front of the dresser. A glint of gold. I’m relieved to have it back. I’m working on trying to accept that it is the nature of earrings to get lost. Ditto umbrellas. Ditto, as the Buddha would say, every single thing. Maybe these earrings going rogue are an opportunity to practice getting with the program. Thanks for your writing, Nancy.
5
You can still wear the single earring. Your earrings don't have to match. Symmetry is overrated!
3
I have made many singles into zipper pulls. They look great
11
Just like my socks, I've got one of every color but nary a pair.
6
A good way to search for a lost metal object is to use a bright flashlight held at a low angle.
4
That sinking feeling when I realize I’m missing an earring is just awful. I experienced it a few weeks ago when I realized I was missing a tourmaline stud. Imagine my joy when I found it on the bathmat as I got ready for bed later in the evening.
4
This really resonated. I keep my old singleton earrings and re-purpose them as wine glass charms.
It's not just lost earrings, though, although the mate will always be a reminder, but lost jewelry of any kind. We had a break-in once where the thief took all my jewelry. Most of it was not valuable, but sentimental. There was a pair of abalone earrings my husband gave me when we visited Catalina Island. I bought a replacement pair - better jewelry actually, with silver - but it wasn't the same. And a pair of faded denim turquoise earrings I absolutely loved. I have looked, but have never found a similar pair. I lost a ring once on the train to Chicago, took it off because it was bugging me and did not take the time to put it away in the safest place in my purse; I will always regret not having been more careful. It's amazing how emotionally-laden these little tokens can be.
8
Earrings are really my most beloved possession.
So much so that when my dear father died, I was moved to take off the pair I was wearing, my favorite and most frequently worn, and slip them into his casket before they closed it.
The last gift I could give him, something I was sure possessed my vibration to help him on his journey.
110
@TM Lovely deed.
6
This was such a timely article for me because I'd just lost one of a pair of earrings I'd finally bought to be my everyday, everywhere ones, small gold rings that cost $66, a lot for me. My earring collection includes a large selection of single earrings, and I've even begun to wear them together occasionally, but it's never as satisfying as wearing a pair. So when a friend suggested I search the vacuum cleaner's disposable bag, I girded my loins and pulled it out. And as I extracted clumps of dust and cat fur, and was just thinking "Yuck, yuck, yuck," there it was!!! So that's my suggestion for extending your search, if it's even remotely possible it might be there.
9
(1) Those little plastic earnuts are not fail-safe. Get rid of them when they're too easy to put on the earrings.
(2) Sometimes when I get a cheap pair of earrings I get two pairs (here's to you, Chico's-on-sale, TJ Maxx and some airport/dollar store earrings).
(3) I recently lost a pair of glasses somewhere in the house--I did it once before and they showed up two years later in a garment I had put in a drawer. Unfortunately, it has been six weeks this time and I can't wait two years to have my vision back to 'normal.' And yes, I have looked EVERYWHERE..
3
This article is brilliant! I've experienced all of these emotions and efforts and more, like searching through the dirt of a full vacuum-cleaner bag. I fear that one beloved earring went out with the old bedroom carpet, but still, I'll never give up hope of finding it somewhere in the new carpet.
Another repurpose trick is to wear two different earrings. It can be fun to pair up two similar or complementary styles.
1
My husband gave me my first pair of earrings even before I had my ears pierced. They are truly precious to me. I have lost one a couple of times but found it pretty easily in the house. Except for one time when I surmised it could have fallen down the drain in the bathroom sink. My kind husband worked to access the trap even though I think he didn’t really believe it was retrievable. Lo and behold there it was and I was truly overjoyed! I now place a small plastic cup over the drain whenever I put my earrings in and it works beautifully.
1
I empathize with this essay. I started wearing two different earrings. Hope it becomes a trend.
I loved this article so much. Finally! Someone understands the pain of losing an earring that has value far beyond the cost of the earring itself. I lost one earring out of a set that was my mothers. She died when I was young and it was her favourite set. I wore it only on special occasions or when I wanted to feel her with me. It got lost one day on the subway on a cold Feb evening. I went back every day to ask if anyone had found it... but alas, no one had. It was heartbreaking. I cried for days afterwards. Sometimes these objects are the only physical things we have of the people or places we loved. It hurts to experience that loss again. Thanks for writing this wonderful piece.
20
On vacation in St. Thomas I lost a diamond stud, my favorite pair of earrings, our whole group scoured the room, bed, bathroom and every where else to no avail. We called the concierge desk to check on the pool filter, nothing. Sad, but accepting that it was gone we went on with vacation. Until my daughter climbs out of the pool and says “mom look what I found”. She was playing water volleyball with a friend and felt something sharp under her foot and decided to check, and there it was my earring. Never give up hope:).
10
St. Anthony, St. Anthony please come down, something is lost and can't be found! This prayer has worked for me many times. Once I lost my diamond necklace and after looking high and low I remembered the St. Anthony prayer from my childhood. A voice in my head kept saying look in the garbage, look in the garbage and I thought I know I didn't throw it away! But I listened to the voice and looked in the garbage and sure enough there it was, stuck on a lint remover sheet I had used earlier in the week. The lint remover picked up a lot more than lint. Did St. Anthony really help me? I'm not sure, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
121
@AWientjes
I'm an atheist who swears by the St. Anthony prayer. I think it helps me get in touch with my unconscious, which often knows where the lost item is, when my conscious mind does not.
22
I lost my denture once and frantically looked in the garbage and there it was!
Boy was I relieved... Never wrap your denture in a napkin or a paper towel or a tissue without great attention to what you’re doing with its wrapped self!!
7
@AWientjes Alas, St Jude always replies.
2
A few years ago, I lost my diamond earring at a fancy dinner given by my husband's law firm. The people at my table and the one neighboring table diligently searched under their seats for it. A few minutes later, I found it. As the woman sitting next to me loudly announced, it had fallen into my bra. Mortifying! But I do love those earrings.
7
I lost a gold and diamond small hoop earring, valuable and my favorite to wear from everyday to a night out. Did not know exactly where lost, but had a narrow list from home, driveway, car, witk parking lot, work office. I also wondered if someone picked it up at my office - looked for it constantly for a week, finally gave up. Two years later was doing a final clean out of my car for sale, and found the earring wedged in a dark corner under the driver seat, hallelujah! I had searched there so much before. Now I never give up looking for the solo sister earrings I have...
7
Never give up! One morning at work I noticed 1 tiny diamond missing out of a double row of 10 diamonds in an antique wedding ring my grandmother had given me. I was devastated and kept retracing my steps to no avail. When I got in my car to go home that night, something minuscule glinted at me on the carpet. It was the diamond! Another time, I lost a clear, hard contact lens on a snow covered driveway when I touched my eye with a gloved finger. I gave up looking for that pretty fast because every snowflake glitters. The next day I flew back to Los Angeles and got a phone call from my mother who had found it in the snow and put it in the mail to me. I still can’t believe she found it.
6
I gave my orphan to men who only wear one. They were so thankful for the gift.
3
Oh dear, this just happened to me - on the way from DC back to Munich I lost one of my silver Tiffany's studs, a birthday present, the earrings I have been wearing ever since pretty much every day (and night). After realizing that this small, precious item really had not been found by anyone (thanks for checking, Lufthansa!) I searched the internet (Tiffany's is not making them anymore) and found a pair on a Japanese website. I bought it and - guess what - since I only needed one I mailed the other one to my dear friend in Tucson. She had lost one of hers years ago, the spare one sitting in a jewelry box until now. Double Happy End!
14
As someone with a large collection of singletons whose missing twins are much lamented, after a bit of online research I found and bought 'Earring Back Stoppers', after which I never lost another earring.
2
Thanks for this. I am still mourning an onyx earring I lost in 1971 when I hoisted a small child onto my shoulders and his snowsuit snagged it. It fell into the snow and is probably still there somewhere, deep in the turf of a small house long since lost to divorce. Now I only wear lever-backs. I wish they were easier to find!
Last spring, getting out of the car and across the street a Dad, Mom, and Daughter are crouched along the street poring over the leaves and gutter dirt... Daughter had taken off her bike helmet there and earring popped out. Started to look, advised Dad that the leaves he was going through were doubtless full of dog leavings and recommended the maze method while telling the story of finding my own unique earring years ago-- "And then I finished looking at every inch of the yard, wandered out into the middle of it, looked down, and there it was!"-- and looked down, and there it was. The most nondescript small gold stud you can imagine. Easily replaceable. They hadn't told me what it looked like, and I was so surprised I picked it up and asked them, "Is this it?"
3
Some years ago I went to a job interview wearing a spiffy navy Ann Taylor pantsuit , white blouse, matching pumps and of course my favorite pair gold hoop and white pearl bead earrings that I had owned for years; always reliable to accent any occasion.
This day I knew I had it going on! Perfect makeup and hair, etc. I felt attractive, confident and qualified for that job.
When I left I got in my car and pulled down the visor mirror to freshen lipstick (as we women often do) and to my horror I was missing an earring.
Needless to say I looked everywhere; under the car seats, floor, the ground outside; tracing steps back inside the building, on the elevator and even to back home; yada yada. Never found.
I wondered if I did the entire interview without it. Probably.
I didn't get the job, but I was really more upset about the loss of that earring. So traumatizing.
11
I've lost more single earrings than I care to confess. I've watched helplessly as one swirled down a hotel shower drain; as I realized that one beautiful new silver hoop had vanished somewhere in the depths of the local medical center (or perhaps in the massive parking structure); as I heard the "tick" of a tiny object landing and bouncing into oblivion under the cabinet in my 100 year old house; or silently disappear into the deep carpet pile under a dresser in a family member's guest room. That one was so large that clearly supernatural forces were involved. Thank you for the interesting ideas for coping...
6
I have a box for the lost ones. They were beloved, gold and I can't part with them. Not very valuable but it doesn't matter. I open that box and look at them all, longingly.
I still think I will find the mates some time.
I wear the same jewelry for many years and only buy new when something rings that bell.
This article may seem frivolous to some but we need a little lightheartedness in our daily read.
5
One difficult part of losing a small piece of jewelry is suspecting the cleaning help of having stolen it. My partner once missed a valuable emerald ring that she was in the habit of removing when she washed dishes at the sink. She asked the Russian couple who cleaned our house, but they knew nothing about the ring. After a thorough search of the house, cellar to attic, it was hard for us to believe that the ring had not been stolen, and it took some forbearance on our part not to dismiss the probable culprits. It's a good thing we didn't. A year or more after it went missing, the ring turned up in a little used drawer in an upstairs bathroom.
7
I am at that stage in my life when I constantly misplacing things.
Two days ago it was a hearing aid. It is still missing.
This is making my life miserable, except for the fact that I am also
finding things.
A couple of weeks back I came across an invitation to my bar mitzvah in 1953. My old diplomas have also resurfaced recently, along with a couple of 20 year old Brooks Brothers sport coats that still fit me.
Life is a circle, and we go round and round.
21
I have a rule of thumb for earrings (and shoes): lose one and you are out of luck. Lose both and the pair will be found.
3
I have mourned the loss of many socks and I’d really like to know where they’ve all gone.
4
I simply vowed never to get any earrings over $30. And I got into the Peruvian ones big time when I had long hair. Now I dont wear any earrings at all and I have a case with hooks for the earrings that hangs on the wall. I get to see them, remember when I got them but not fuss with them or lose them anymore.
2
I wear my mismatched orphan earrings and refer to them as “fraternal twins”.
13
At first I thought what a silly article...
Then I remembered I lost an earring, a diamond one from the pair my husband had given to me when he proposed.
I had been disappointed at first that it wasn’t a ring, but they were beautiful. I wore them all the time and loved them.
When I remembered that earring now the heartache returned. What I wouldn’t do to get it back now...
14
How about that earring that you FOUND on the floor of the car on the passenger side that didn’t belong to you or any of your girlfriends?
And the last person who drove your car was your husband or SO?
Been there, and it’s not pretty... Time to start humming “Your Cheatin’ Heart”!
16
@NinaMargo —ouch!
2
Get a grip; there are people in dire straits, and you're mourning a lost earring?
1
@PKP It's called humor and a much-needed respite from the world's many problems.
11
No one is saying it’s the end of the world or that there aren’t more serious problems to worry about, but we are human and it’s normal to be sad when you lose something special.
6
I have a metal detector collecting dust in the garage after I purchased it solely to find one lost earring I believed to be lost in my yard. While the contraption cost nearly what the earrings did, I couldn’t locate the earrings online—they weren’t made anymore and I had a remarkably sentimental attachment to them. After several days of sifting through all kinds of things in the yard and looking crazy to the neighbors, I found it. In the laundry.
8
I enjoyed your article. I too have many single earrings. Sometimes I wear two vaguely similar earrings and no one seems to notice. My son bought me a pair of gold earrings a few years back that I loved. I soon lost one. Eventually I decided to have a similar one made on Etsy. The first time I gave her the wrong measurements and it was too large, but she misunderstood my request and made two so it was okay until I lost one of those. Then I sent her the correct measurements and the earring got lost in transit. I had her make another and I lost it in my house the first time I put it on. That was a couple of years ago and it is still missing. I may eventually try again. I've taken to making my own earrings so when I lose one I can easily replace it, though these are silver, not gold.
3
Lost... and found...over the years. During a trip to Kauai, I lusted after a pair of simple small black pearl earrings, but couldn’t afford them (I was a struggling student). As I crossed the airport parking lot on my way home, Pele placed a small silk bag containing -you guessed it- a pair of those very earrings- at my feet. There was no one around. Since then (1985) , I would lose one, and find it, lose one and find it, over and over again. I never lost faith and hope. I still have them and treasure them.
15
When I began taking classes in metalsmithing my first project was a pair of bronze earrings that I thought turned out great. I proudly put them on to wear for the first time to work on a snowy morning. As I exited my car, I tossed my scarf around my neck and it caught one of the earrings and tossed it right into the path of the snowplow barreling down the lane of the parking lot. With one big woosh, my earring was gone! I searched the entire path of the plow and when the giant snow heap at the end of the lane melted months later, I searched the area but never found my earring. Its mate still sits in my tool box years later, waiting for its twin to return.
3
I have lost many earrings, but the most painful losses (for him and me) were the unique artisan ones that my husband gave me early in our relationship.
A few years ago,I went walking for a couple of miles out on West Cliff in Santa Cruz. When I got home, I realized I had lost one of the extravagant hoop earrings of Swarzky crystals I had recently bought for myself (my husband doesn't buy me earrings anymore.) I was so upset!
I knew it was a very long shot, but I took a photo of the remaining earring and posted it on flyers with a note about how much it meant to me at different locations along the path.
Much to my surprise, a couple of days later a woman called and said that she had found my earring and I was able to retrieve it the next day!
15
My husband bought me opal earrings early in our marriage. I have no idea what they cost, but I know they were a reach for him. One dropped on the closet floor of our former home when I was removing them. It was a very rustic closet, built under the eaves, and there were substantial spaces between the floorboards. 31 years later, I’m assuming it’s still there. I keep meaning to have the orphan made into a necklace. Hasn’t happened. It just sits on my jewelry rack as a reminder of my husband’s love.
10
I've lost several 14K gold earrings over the years and finally brought the singles into a jewelry store.
After weighing them, I was cut a nice check on the spot, which I in turn used for a new pair.
Memories of nice earrings are OK, too.
3
This is why I just buy cheap earrings. I've lost too many. I keep the singletons in a little jar and wear them in mismatched pairs. No one ever notices.
1
One word: Screwback
2
Why can't earring backings be screw on?
1
Men do suffer in a similar way.
The five stages of tool loss.
Realization when you go to put it away or drop it.
Mourning, followed by cursing. D***. I had that Snap -on or what ever brand forever and now the company is gone.
Denial,. Maybe if I put a magnet down in there, or go back on the barn roof or look in the field...
Reaching out. Fleabay and HAMB alerts sometimes can get you close.
Acceptance. The flex socket, hammer, or snips were not quite the ones you wanted, but they work.
And then one shows up at auction in a lot you missed and the buyer won't sell it Grrrrrrr.
12
When I was going through chemo and lost a good deal of my short hair I clung to a pair of silver dagger earrings that our lovely housekeeper had given me. I wore them everywhere and felt like with all of the awful changes to my body that I couldn’t control, the earrings were the one thing that didn’t change. I had to remove them for some medical test and threw them in my purse. As I went to put them back on after leaving the hospital, one was missing. My husband and I looked everywhere to no avail and I cried all the way home. He couldn’t understand why something so small could affect me in such a big way. I had lost so much - both of my breasts, my hair, my energy, my mind and for almost a year, my normal life. Yet it was losing this little piece of silver that pushed me over the edge. He contacted our housekeeper and got another pair which I wore instead but it didn’t feel the same. The lone earring was a tiny bit shorter than the new ones. Towards the end of my treatment as I was leaving the hospital again, I went to put my earrings back on and found the missing one from months before. It had hung onto the interior cloth of a pocket. I was ecstatic and overcome with emotion again. I cried when I reunited the pair.
It’s been 4 years, my hair has grown long again and I still wear both pair regularly. But my favorite is still the original: like me, lost and separated from normal life for a while not knowing it was with me all along.
300
@KFC These anecdotes are marvelous but yours stands out. Thanks so much for taking the time to write it up.
17
@KFC My husband is at his worst-suffering (I hope) point in chemo... where both he and I are tempted to despair and believe that death might be the preferable option, so your tale has given us a reason to smile and hope for the best. I wish you many years of good health and keeping those earrings together....
18
@ Kate O Ugh, I’m so sorry your husband is suffering. Chemo is ugly and awful and pushes the body and the mind closer to death than ever before. I know what you mean, at times death seems like the peaceful option. I hope he can get through these painful days and see the light at the end of the tunnel. I wish you both strength, love and many laughs to get you through this time and onto your normal life.
12
Not a lost earring story, but in that vein .. I think I was 8 when my parents gave me a little gold ring for my birthday. It was a bit loose, but I wore it a lot anyway, until one day, a few months later, we noticed it was gone. My mother and I looked all over our apartment, to no avail. Fast forward to my next birthday, when a cousin gave me the first of the Eloise books. I loved it, and was especially taken with the way she wore toe shoes on her ears, as earrings. I didn’t have toe shoes, but I did still have soft ballet slippers, although I’d stopped taking classes several months before. I hauled them out of the closet, hooked them over my ears and was astounded when the ring fell out of one them - it must have been dislodged when I took my slippers off after my last class. I didn’t wear the ring again until my mother had a guard put on it.
7
Depending on the style, single earings can be appealing. More pain from constantly losing those newish and expensive bluetooth smartphone ear pods - which apparently is a thing.
1
1. My aunt, who became an avid quilter after retiring, made a quilt using all of her single earrings.
2. I, too, have mourned the loss of a beloved earring. And when it happens I think about what it must be like to lose EVERYTHING in, say, a fire or tornado. Just visited a friend who lost everything in the Paradise fire. I had extra pairs of earrings that I buy from a Chinese website at amazingly low prices, so I buy backups. I gave her 6 pair of my backups. She was very happy--and so was I!
6
Who said you have to wear matching earrings? I wear mismatched earrings all the time. I loved a a pair enough to buy them; sure I miss the other one, but I like having a bit of fun with jewelry.
2
I wear two different ones. Problem solved.
To avoid this issue, I put rubber backings on every single pair of earrings. I have not lost one since. I bought a package of 100 of them from the jewelry section of a department store and solved the problem.
I, too, had a collection of orphan earrings. I added those I no longer wore to said collection. I took them apart and use them in art projects. That way, I have the earrings forever, even if they never get worn again.
3
It is always the harbinger of bad luck when I lose an earring. Years ago, while imprisoned in the nightmare of having unknowingly bought a seriously damaged house, (cracked major stack, dangerously wired, termite destroyed floor beams, for starters), I came home from work and took off my favorite pair of dangling pink pearls and rubies earrings, and put them in my pocket before I changed to start laboring in the money pit. I threw those pants into the washing machine the next day, only remembering the earrings when the sole survivor came out. Things went from bad to worse there as I struggled to restore the place so I could move out. Most of my tradespeople were convinced the place was haunted as that which was restored was soon destroyed by another event. I kept that beloved pearl earring on my dresser to remind myself of everything I had lost. Almost six years later, in despair, I was trying to sell the house, my family already gone from that horror, when pulling clothes out of the DRYER, the other pink pearl earring flew out to me.
Yes! My luck turned and the house sold very soon afterwards.
24
This is poignant but doesn't get to the root of the problem.
What is it about earring design that makes them fall out so easily?
What can we do to keep them from falling out?
Figuring this out would be SO much more useful than all the internet searches and repurposing.
3
@HK —many drop earrings simply have a loop. Without a stopper, they can slip up and out. More frustrating to me is the fact that as the price of gold has climbed, the length of studs has gotten shorter, and the stud back flimsier. The clasp is t as secure.
1
So easy to attach orphan earrings to a simple gold or silver chain ( have yet to mix them). With as few as 6 orphans, you will have a favorite necklace of treasured memories.
1
Fantastic, thoughtful story about the frustration of trying to stem and reverse the loss of iconic items we associate with our identity. If only there was some kind of all-inclusive clearinghouse to report all our lost and found orphans! (The Facebook page doesn't seem quite ideal.) I've long kept all my orphans with the intention of creating some kind of artwork and was delighted and chagrined to read in this piece that other women beat me to it. Kudos, too, to the artists behind "The Chandelier of Lost Earrings," which is gorgeous. Hope this piece tours the U.S. at some point.
4
One year I made a christmas tree out of styrofoam and put the collection of singletons on the tree as ornaments. A great way to celebrate the story of each one
9
@Ellen
Great idea!
It was my fault when I lost a favorite earring years ago. Shame on me but there is a happy ending. My lone earring stared at me for months until one day, a brilliant idea (if I do say so) came to me after I was given a pendant and chain. This gold chain would be perfect for my lone earring when after it was transformed into a pendant. Off to my local jeweler who changed the post for a loop.
2
I lost a handmade earring that was,a special birthday gift. Somehow the person who gave me th e set learned this bought the same hand made set again, though obviously it was slightly different.. I put them carefully away, not wanting t I wear them except in the presence of the person who gav e them to me. I have no idea where that place is. I have looked everywhere. For weeks. Aside from that, my own approach to buying earrings is that they in fact not be special and that I buy two sets from the beginning.
This was about two years ago, but writing this I want t I start look again.
1
At my outdoor wedding, immediately after saying our vows, I turned to hug an old friend, my earring, a then extravagant gift from my husband, caught on his lapel and was tossed into oblivion. The pictures of my wedding are all of the guests fruitlessly searching in the grass. Of course the lonely singleton still sits in my jewelry box, 40 years later.
128
@ML See my post above. I am wearing a singleton very happily now. Fashion rules be damned.
I lost a gold earring on the banks of a river in Alaska. I forgot to remove them before the river-rafting began. They made it all the way through the rapids, only to catch on my wetsuit as I was changing afterwards. I heard the faint clink as one hit the rocks - it was so small I couldn’t find it. Rather ironic to “give” gold back to an Alaska river after all that’s been taken out by prospectors over the years!
12
I didn't even realize I did this until reading the article. I have loners in a box in the closet from over 50 years. Every once in a while I look through them and morn.
9
I use my widows (especially the sparkly ones) as Christmas ornaments - the pain of loss and shame converted to holiday joy and an extra special tree.
16
@Georgie R. me too!
1
Years ago, I had just started dating the nice guy who’d eventually become my husband. He’d given me a pair of emerald earrings, which somehow I lost. I was sick about it.
A few years later, I humored a friend who badgered next into visiting a psychic. For fun. I certainly didn’t believe in their supposed powers.
The woman told me my earrings were in a dark place; she could see a purse lining. I assured her I only had one purse & had looked there.
Years later, I was moving & in going through an old purse I planned to give to Goodwill, there the earrings were.
Happy earring endings DO happen.
32
It's Karma to see this article... I mean, I've been wearing my diamond earrings in my ears so long I can't even remember which anniversary I got them for...(my anniversary was the day the article was written, said earring loss was discovered the day before). It was almost as if the expiration date had worn off on it! And, though I'd had but a couple of close calls in the past (tweaking it back closer to my earlobe) because it had a safety edge on it, the backing never seemed to travel much... until Thursday.
To make matters just a tad worse, I recently had a small political related tiff on facebook with a good friend slash jeweler friend of mine and i feel ooky about asking him to make me the match again.
Like I said, Karma!
5
I have to reply to my own letter because stuff like this just doesn't happen!
Below is an actual email exchange that just happened today as a result of my reading your article. Background: I was at a friend's house on Wednesday using her kitchen to cook a meal in as my own kitchen was non functioning for 2 weeks on a remodel. (I left part of the meal for her husband bc he was alone and she was away visiting her dad. I knew he liked what we made for dinner and that he' be grateful).
For the days after I wondered if the earring might have been lost at her place but I kept pushing the thought of of my head-she had bigger things to deal with as her father was ill and I didn't want to bother her with searching for an earring!
Here's the exchange
"not that I hold any hope whatsoever but the day I lost a diamond earring I'd also been working in your kitchen-if one should turn up before you vacuum could you let me know?
I was all over the neighborhood that day and didn't catch on for at least 24 hrs that it had gone rogue on me so I hold little hope-plus we'd been vacuuming A LOT so - yeah-and then I saw this article in the Times today which made me kind a laugh out loud.."
My friend's reply an hour later:
"Yes I found the earring! It’s your lucky day!!!!Actually my cleaning lady found it and I was wondering where it came from. I’m not home now but can give it to you later today. I’ll let you know when I get home."
To which I replied: NO WAY!
Karma
3
I wish more earrings had screw backs. That solves this problem.
1
After losing a pearl earring (a gift from my husband), I was able to get a matched replacement, and asked the jeweler to put screw backs on both. I now take any special earrings in and ask for the posts to be replaced with screw backs. It’s definitely worth it.
1
I greatly enjoyed the chuckle and shared commiseration over lost loved things, and the memories they inspired. With a clever title to boot. Thanks for the enjoyable start to a Saturday morning!
6
Gosh, when I lose an erring, I just wear a different one in each ear. Trendy and cool. Problem solved.
1
I lost an earring from a set my mom left on her desk before she passed. I was cleaning the yard and discovered this 45 big bags of leaves later. It still smarts.
2
I've had pierced ears for 44 years and somehow have never lost an earring, but I really enjoyed this article.
I once forgot to put on earrings and didn't realize it until I was already at work. It felt weird to have empty earlobes. Then my husband suggested over the phone that I could always wear a couple of paper clips on my ears. I laughed, but tried it and it worked!! I wore them all day and no one said anything. Those paper clips are now stored with my other earrings. (I haven't worn them again, though.)
4
So perfect, thank you Nancy. I will help my wife through the stages ! As for spending 2 1/2 days a year looking for lost items, I think my count is double that for my keys alone .
1
I was nervous to click on the article lest I jinx myself to losing yet another earring from a pair. But I read it anyway, figuring it may bring me some comfort knowing that it happens to most of us.
On the other hand though, I have found myself in quite a few situations where I noticed an earring dangling precariously from a woman’s lobe, just at the cusp of falling any moment and being lost forever. I was always able to alert the women and prevent the imminent loss. That itself feels like a triumph!
5
Friends, You don't have to suffer any longer! I learned the hard way (by losing many earring, interestingly, several of them while swimming in large bodies of water, like the Mediterranean and Lake Superior) to use these little clear plastic backings I purchase at the craft store. They're cheap and they absolutely do the trick. I imagine you could find them at a bead store, too. Anywhere people go for the materials needed to make earrings.
18
I lost an inexpensive, gold tone, stud earring that said “love” in cursive writing. I remember going through all these emotions mentioned. Even though it could probably be replaced fairly easily, I was still disappointed. Anyway, I lost the earring while zip lining over redwoods in N. California. So I took the other one and pinned it to a travel photo board, to remind me of that fun adventure.
5
I lost one of my favorite earrings, simple & inexpensive, but beloved & often admired-- smokey grey glass hearts on a simple silver French drop. Months later, it fell to the floor while I shook out my partners fleece cardigan after laundry. It must have hooked itself there somehow while we snuggled sometime way back when. The mystery is he wore that fleece almost every single day in the interim... The relationship ended, but the earrings remain a blessed reunited pair.
19
I created an interesting, beautiful necklace on 30 inch silver chain with seven ( and counting for future losses) of single earrings. Quite a conversation piece!
5
Ever since my kids were in grade school our mission has been to find errant earrings. Often they have been damaged by being stepped on or run over but we would hang them lovingly on an nkisi Nkondi African sculpture, eventually covering most of its surface with the lost treasures leaving only its fierce face exposed. Family lore transformed our sculpture into a fertility spirit where the owner of each earring would immediately become pregnant once the lonely bobble was hung from one of the sharp, corroded pieces of metal protruding from the figure. It gave us such a sense of power.
3
It wasn’t single and it wasn’t lost. It was a pair of my grandmother’s earrings that I inherited, in my bag stolen from me in Berlin by a 2-person team of thieves in Berlin (one distracts you while the other grabs the bag). I replaced them with a pair I love, but I still mourn the loss. It’s a sense of wanting to relive the moment and being able to prevent it. Then there was the lovely filigree earring that fell off some time during a walk with someone who was my friend trying to convince me that I was wrong to want to divorce my husband. I retraced my steps about 5 times before I gave up finding the earring. The friendship didn’t fare much better. That was about 23 years ago. Indeed, it is not the item alone but memories we have.
5
@Dfkinjer I was just thinking about a pair of earrings that my mom handed down to me, that were in my bag that was stolen from me in Barcelona. Also in that bag was the only necklace I've ever liked wearing. I figured out how to make a pair of earrings that looked almost exactly like the ones I lost, but I never managed to replace the necklace, and I've never really worn necklaces since.
1
You’ve got to be kidding.
Maybe we like to magnify the loss of an object because it allows us to focus on an item instead of on all our big losses in life. We focus on the loss of an earring that has a special meaning when we are perhaps really mourning our youth that is long gone, or a past moment, or a dear person that is no longer a part of our life.
7
@Travelers why can't we just be sad because we really loved the earrings. Sheesh!
4
I had a friend named Jane who had an eagle eye and every few months or so would find an errant earring or pin just lying on the sidewalk in Manhattan. Every once in a while she'd have one appraised, and more than once it was worth more than a few hundred dollars. She just had a knack for spotting shiny objects signaling from below.
Yes, I'm from the 'glass half full' school of optimism. Reading about just how many lost earrings may be out there, next time you are waiting for the "walk" sign, don't spend that down time playing candy crush on your phone or scrolling through emails, instead, looking down on the street to see if anything sparkles back at you.
Become the Jessica Fletcher of Lost Earrings and think of the adventures you'll have!
11
My greatest heartbreak in earring loss was the loss of one of my Italian nonna’s 18k gold and pearl lever-back drops that she gifted me when I was about 25. How it fell out of my pierced ear with the leverback is beyond me but I still mourn the loss of that mate. I don’t believe it can be replicated; those earrings came with my grandmother from Italy way back in 1932, and I don’t know how much older they were when she received them. Such a shame.
15
Like the lone sock that makes it out of the dryer, it’s impossible to toss a single earring because you KNOW you’ll immediately find it’s mate. So they sit in a drawer year after year ...
9
We don’t write off lost earrings until the snow melts
11
years ago, i lost one earring, a Roberto Coin small gold huggie with a tiny drop diamond.......my absolute favorite pair and irreplaceable both financially and technically. I was at work when I noticed. i started crawling around the floor. looking in my clothes. looking all over the office. I ran out to the car and looked over and under with a flashlight. i went back to my desk and just couldn't believe that i was so freaked out. finally i left the office and drove home and voila!!! there it was, on the floor, next to the bed. I drove back to work feeling much relief. to this day, i can't forget how i felt. i never knew i put so much into a small earring.
11
Can they make a 3D printer to fix this problem?
5
If only we could do this with earrings:
Many years ago in the "Metropolitan Diary" was the story of a woman who got off a subway train on a freezing winter day, then realized she had left one of her gloves on the seat. The doors were about to close, the car was just about empty, no one could retrieve it -- so just as the doors started to close she tossed in its mate, landing right next to the other glove. A happy surprise for a cold gloveless subway rider down the line.
Nah, that wouldn't work with earrings. What was I thinking?
20
such a great thing to do!
2
Thank your for this article, which resonates very much for me! My experience is, lost earrings (and/other valued jewellery pieces) amount less to material losses, than to a mourning of losses of soul. Just recently, I gave up my desperate search for one of a pair of cheap pearl earrings, a gift from my young daughter. It was only thanks to a particular day—and its particular cast of sunlight—that the lost pearl was illuminated on my living room floor. (Thank goodness, no one had run the vacuum cleaner.) That said, I'd like to share two fairy tale-like but true stories, pointing to the message expressed by others, "you never know":
Decades ago, my (now deceased) Dad lost his West Point graduation ring while casting his fishing line into a backwood creek in Maryland. After a fervent but fruitless search, he gave up hope. Nearly a year later, during the spring up-stream run, another fisherman noticed something glinting from underwater. That fisherman went after the gold, and found the ring. And thanks to his good heart, and the inner inscribed ID—he located my Dad and returned the ring to him.
Also decades ago, my (still living) Mom lost her wedding ring on the beach, our "front yard", at Oahu's North Shore, where we lived at the time. Years later—after countless tidal changes and shiftings of the beach—a friend was idly sifting her fingers through the sands, when she found a ring. It was *the ring*—my Mom's wedding ring!!
30
Stage 6 Make a Pendant out of the remaining earring
My wife always loved it when I did this
6
I have news. I found all the missing earrings. I am holding them for reward money.
37
Oh so familiar and so timely. Two days ago I was trying on clothes, turtle neck sweaters to be precise, and momentarily thought about removing my earrings, but alas, didn't heed that small thought. When I got home, 22 miles from the store, I realized one earring was missing. It wasn't expensive, just a knock off of a Tiffany design, but one of my sons had given me the pair for Christmas and I wore them at least once a week for years.
I called the store when they opened the next day, but no luck. I left my name and number just in case it turns up.
2
This brought back memories of losing a favorite earring while out shopping in my town center the afternoon of December 24th- the most frenzied food-shopping day of the year in France. I can still remember going back to the bakery, the butcher shop, the charcuterie, and the cheese shop and squeezing past the lines of people picking up orders which stretched out the doors, asking the harried shopkeepers if the had found my earring, and being touched by the way all the customers began diligently searching the floor around their feet. My last hope was the chocolate shop and when a customer found the errant earring and held it aloft with a triumphant “Voilà” everyone clapped. It was a lovely beginning to Christmas.
65
My own solution to this problem is making sure that any replacement earring is more expensive than the one I lost. I'm male. I wear 4 at all times. Right now I have diamonds sapphires and emeralds in my ear, all custom made either in New York or closer to home. I don't have rubies because then I would look like a Christmas tree. However, I do find that the quicker I am back at the store spending more money that I skip all the phases of grief because I am materialistic and I like shiny things.
11
I lost a diamond earring from a pair my late husband had given me for my 40th birthday and was heartbroken (it happened during a trip to London, so there was no chance it would turn up later). I considered replacing it but it didn't feel right, given the sentimental value of the earring (and the cost). I ended up getting a third piercing, and now can wear my earring again, or one of the many other orphans I have collected, along with a matched set.
9
At the age of 66, I got a second piercing in one ear, partly for my “orphans” - I’ve always liked the notion of asymmetry - and partly for sentiment. We recently celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary and coral is the appropriate gift. I split a pair of corral studs with my husband, who has a single piercing.
10
The answer is to do what we men do when buying socks: buy at least three identical pairs. (Not sure if this is always possible with earrings but you could try) That way if you lose one, no problem.
2
So, long story. When my mother died in 2001, we went out to see my sister in California and deal with divvying up up what she left behind. She (my mother) had made a ring, when she married my father, consisting of 5 diamonds that had been passed down on both sides of the family. Beautiful thought, but ugly ring, since they were not all the same size and little art had gone into the design. This ring came to my family. It sat in a box.
One year I decided on the best Christmas present. I had the two largest stones made into earrings for my wife, and the next largest for me. I had been wearing a single earring for about 10 years by then.
In 2016 my wife died, and I took to wearing one of her diamond studs. That Christmas, I noticed that the earring was gone. I looked everywhere, including the shower drain, but thought that I had lost it on a bike ride.
After the Christmas season was over, I took out the tree and cleaned up the needles. There was something shiny amongst them. The earring. I took that as a sign that she was looking out for me.
The next year, I was hanging Christmas lights on a pine tree outside Again, after doing that, I discovered the earring missing. I spent weeks looking through the grass and leaves at the base of that pine tree. Almost hired a guy who had a metal detector.
I tried raking up the leaves and whatnot in the Spring, and again discovered a glint.
I am wearing that earring now. Thank you, Paula.
53
I have a 3rd piercing, in my right ear between the lobe and the pinna. When I was 18 I decided symmetry was over-rated. The occasional orphaned & beloved single earring always has a place of honor.
5
I am baffled by why the loss of one earring is so problematic. What’s wrong with wearing a single earring? Many people have just one ear pierced and they’re okay. We don’t wear brooches, rings or bracelets in pairs, and most of us are fine with that.
2
@Lilyfred It's one thing when you have only one ear pierced, but it you have two -- and especially as you get older and your earlobes get larger -- having one with just a hole in it while the other has an earring looks somewhat bizarre. Also, clearly earrings are completely different from brooches, rings, and bracelets, none of which are traditionally worn in pairs the way earrings are.
1
And then there's the earring I found on the floor a few days after a party at my house. I contacted all the women guests to find out who it belonged to, and, well, none of them claimed it. It's still on the shelf in my dining room cabinet although it must have been over twenty years ago that I found it. I periodically come across it and still wonder who its owner is. And wonder how it came to be in my house.
2
This is not very sentimental, but I got rid of a handful of singletons, along with some gold chains, to one of those mall gold buyer kiosks. I’m sure I didn’t get a good deal, but at least I didn’t have to keep being reminded of their loss. I still miss my golden dolphins - this was pre-internet. I bet I could find a duplicate now.
1
Thanks for all the good ideas for what to do with the orphans! None of this had ever occurred to me. I have a complicated system for managing my earrings - a sort of "master" earring tree, then a container for the ones that are in the current "rotation," sorted into various categories (some by color, some by what sort of outfit they go with ...), one for the earrings that I still like but don't feel like wearing lately, another for earrings that have sentimental value and/or are for special occasions, etc. An "earring salon" for the earrings that need polishing. An "earring hospital" for ones that need repairing. A sad, forlorn container of orphans … now I will think of it as "earrings that need to be repurposed or upcycled"!
5
They don’t have to match. Sometimes I pair by color, shape, theme (leaves, dragonflies...)...or just size...
Leverbacks are my friends. My latest practice is to order on Etsy and request leverbacks instead of wires.
Otherwise, save the singles! You may find the missing earrings...also, sometimes it is workable to coordinate two mismatched earrings (a la Betsey Johnson's jewelry line). I love it when I receive a "do you know you have on two different earrings?" comment.
1
I recently completed changed my earring philosophy. I used to love interesting, dangling earrings and used to go through dozens a year. They were all cheap so my typically messy self also didn’t take good care to keep them together. Recently I had my second kid and realized the random singleton earring hanging around was a choking hazard. Finally I’ve become more aware of the climate implications of the fast fashion industry.
I now wear a single pair of gold and (small) diamond hoops that are lever back and comfortable to wear to sleep and last in the shower. I never have to take them off. They are professional. Of course less interesting and flashy for going out, but in my late 30s and don’t care anymore.
We all need to wear fewer and buy less.
8
I was feeling really sad and anxious when this story reminded me of the expensive diamond ring that my mother gave to my daughter, and how my daughter lost the ring. Then I read the part about the woman whose 15 yo daughter died. Perspective is everything, isn’t it?
13
I wear a group of 4 mismatched earrings regularly. They make me feel good. Each had a partner that disappeared. They are great conversation starters.
2
Just this week I took out my ziplock bag of singletons and made 10 matches! I also have at least twice as many of unmatched singles. I reworked a few, fixed two pairs and was surprised at how happy I was to have some of them restored.
I have a ridiculous amount of costume jewelry (most of it cost $20 or less) but I enjoy so much adorning myself differently with earrings, bracelets, necklaces and rings to suit my mood that I am OK with it. I do have a few very expensive "good" pieces that I inherited but I rarely wear them. They require dressier clothing that I rarely have a reason to wear.
I well understand mourning the loss of any of it. It might be silly, but I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one!
9
My sister once created a charm necklace out of all my single earrings. It’s been my favorite necklace for nearly a decade. Meanwhile around the same time I bought a bunch of those little rubber earring backers. I have rarely lost an earring since.
10
I was pet-sitting once and had an earring eaten by a chicken (she was completely fine). Lesson learned re:shiny objects and curious birds :P
15
An adventure of the blue carbuncle!
I give my singletons (and broken jewelry) to our local thrift store (benefits a local woman's shelter) and they sell the items to crafters. Turns a negative into a positive!
9
You left out two things: Stage 6: Realizing I will ever find its mate, I finally dispose of the orphaned earring. Stage 7: Shortly thereafter I find its mate, which is now an orphan. :-(
33
@Susan H
Or thinking you’ve found the mate, only to realize that you’d moved the one survivor and forgotten- Joy! Then disappointment anew.
4
@RebeccaB. I found this article extremely helpful. I lost one of a pair of beloved earrings that I have owned and worn almost continuously for many years. This article pointed me to a company that can replicate the lost earring for me. I’m delighted. Thank you for publishing this piece NYT.
8
I solved this problem.
I never had my ears pieced. And I don't wear earrings.
(BTW, I was born female and self identify as a straight woman)
3
I got my ears pierced - strongly against my wishes - in high school. A friend dragged me to it. I still wear earrings today but stick to almost exclusively one small pair of studs that never leave my ears.
What the incident did teach me was to stand up for myself. I am a cis straight woman but was never “girly”. I learned to not knuckle under to what others thought was cool.
3
Gracious me! What a pleasure to read something completely free of politics and full of feminine (mostly) day-to-day reality. More, please.
37
Why are we ignoring the all important “Stage 6 - Shopping”?
We really can’t deny the importance of finding a new love after one is lost.
6
I know where the lost earring is -- with the missing sock!
173
Many years ago I lost a diamond earring on a disappearing tide beach on Maui. The next morning, looking at the wet sand I told my young son that if he found the earring I would buy him any toy he wanted. He walked to the middle of the beach, stooped down and lifted the earring, post side up, from the sand. He chose a kite.
True story.
374
@maureen Pele doing what she does best...
15
@maureen,
Thank you very much for sharing this true (and darling child) story.
5
I can barely imagine a sillier topic for an article....with all the grief and loss that goes on across the globe every day this is insulting, even if it meant to be is little amusing.
5
Oh good lord. Just get over it.
9
Telling someone to get over it is to deny their feelings and that, frankly, is callous and heartless. How about learning that sometimes the mundane things in life actually mean something to some people? When I lost an earring purchased on the most wonderful vacation of my life, I was bereft and considered taking the other to a jeweler to have another one made. Fortunately, I found the original on the grass near where I had gotten my hair cut. I was overjoyed.
Have you never felt the lose of something seemingly unimportant? A stuffed animal as a child? If you have children, have you not searched high and low for something that they cannot live without? Did you tell your child - or yourself - to get over it? I certainly hope you did not.
And, now, you need to get over it.
3
I lost a raven claw ear ring at my cousn's wedding last September. Have you seen it?
6
You suffer from Single Earring Disease.
Thankfully, it is not terminal.
Simply get a second hole pierced in one ear. One hole in each ear. Then a second in one. You then have a place to wear your single earrings.
I, too, have Single Earring Disease. They tell me it is not Terminal.
I don't believe them.
1
Orphaned earrings make for fantastic pendants, easily reworked with pliers and a jump ring for the task- or let a jeweler do the job for you. Renewal!
4
Yes! I do this, too. It's easy and mitigates the loss.
1
Better to lose an earring then part of your ear.
Cheap earrings are cheap.
8
Nice. The solution fits the depth of the problem, too.
4
I lost an earring in a boyfriend’s car. I searched and searched- couldn’t find it and was similarly bereft. I just loved those earrings. Months later he told me he found it! I gasped! I was delighted!!! “Where is it?” I asked enthusiastically . “I tossed it,” he replied casually. My eyes narrowed. “You knew how much those earrings meant to me, didn’t you.” He said nothing, nor did he look at me. Ah. So that’s how it is. Passive-aggressive. Hmmmm. It did not go well for him after that. He lost my trust and I broke up with him. Such a little thing, a lost earring.
314
I laughed when I read your reply. Your boyfriend got dinged and unmasked for his potential future bad behavior. Early in my marriage, I often found myself asking my husband a lot of "Where is that" questions only to find the items had been discarded without asking. I never did get a good explanation beyond "I didn't think you wanted it". (No, I never threw away anything of his.) He stopped that behavior but stopped cleaning out too!
12
@Laura Martínez - that earring SAVED you!
54
@Laura Martínez
Consider it a cheap divorce without legal bills, and you wisely dumped the nasty !ouse without ever having to interact with him in court.
36
This is just about as silly and frivolous an article as I've ever read. I'm amazed it is taking up bandwidth in the NY Times.
22
@Rebecca B oh come on - does every article have to be serious and depressing?
129
@Rebecca B Don't we get enough Trump and Democrat self immolation?
65
@Rebecca B You'd be surprised how common is this phenomenon of being left with only one hearing that is so valuable and a mark of unforgettable time in our lives. My daughter got her first ear piercing at age 1, which was a happy stepping stone when having a daughter, and permanent earrings at age 2. Eleven years later, she came home and discovered that one earing was missing. This earing is saved in a small plastic bag and has a sentimental value. I was fascinated with this article because it happened to us just recently and I think I got attached to those earrings more than my daughter did. Thank you for spotting those small moments of sorrow that will remember for quite some time.
21
I turn my singletons into hatpins.
13
I have only one piercing, so even though I rarely have a twin that "sham[es] [me] for losing its mate," I have lost many a singleton in the almost 50 years since I got a hole punched in my right earlobe (back in the day when which ear a man chose meant something). I wear only earrings that I really like (otherwise, what's the point?), so I go through all the stages of grief when I lose one. Yes, even "acceptance," finally.
8
@Michael Jacques So, which ear meant what? I never was clear on that. Mine's in my left ear, so I guess we are star-crossed.
1
After having lost numerous earrings including one of a pair that I cherished, I stopped wearing earrings completely for about ten years. My holes closed. I was attending a Ball about four years ago and I caved in and had new holes made. I don’t want to jinx anything but so far....
11
There is no law against wearing a different earring in each ear.
95
@B Lundgren - The character, Frankie (IIRC), on the soap, Another World, always wore two different earrings.
3
And what about wearing just one earring in one ear?
2
I have a drawer of these lost earrings and every few years force myself to acknowledge that I won't be finding the other earring and that I should get rid of them, but it is definately hard... Nice article!
37
It makes me feel so much better to know I’m not the only one who has lost earrings and gotten emotional over the loss. Oh the lengths I have gone to in trying to track down a lost bauble — it was embarrassing to admit until I read this article. I still hold on to the singles and have faith that at least one of the disappeared mates will surface when I least expect it!
52
Always check by your boyfriend's bed. I have accumulated a collection over the years.
22
@Someone else, I have so many questions...
11
Mount multiples to avoid the gap.
1
I've suffered this loss so many times that I now buy bags full of little white rubbery "ear nuts" from a bead-supply store. They fit over both wires and posts and completely prevent more losses.
Favorite story? I reached up to my ear one day and found I'd lost one of the tiny ruby studs my late mother gave me when I finished my Ph.D. (only way I ever got my too-expensive birthstone). I knew I'd never find anything that small. Two days later, my brother said he'd found a funny thing in the rug in his apartment. Sometimes they DO come home to roost.
120
@Oriflamme Those little earnuts--I got a lot from Amazon a year ago--are not foolproof either. Throw them away when they get too easy to put on.
4
You complete me. I rarely read an article and feel a bond with the writer. I’ve been told I am sentimental about random stuff. Do I through out those old purple velour sweatpants? I did but felt a loss. They were from a time I could swirl a crazy look and feel chic now I just look crazy/homeless. It’s probably why I don’t wear earrings much knowing in my heart the high stakes of losing one will crush my obsessive little heart.
75
It's worse in the winter when a shawl or scarf pulls them off.
I'm now putting on backings (clear or white tiny pieces of plastic) on all my drop earrings.
61
Lovely. Just last night my teenage son was getting a bone from under the ottoman that my giant Labrador desperately wanted and he found my missing earring that was part of a favorite pair missing for 3 months. I was beyond thrilled! I thanked him enthusiastically again and again - he was completely bewildered by my reaction, not sure why he was a hero but happy to be one. This piece helps explain all my feelings ... so glad I didn’t throw away the other one away - you just never know..
261
Hope springs eternal. I have a few orphans and hope that one day they’ll be reunited with their mates.
9
@LAMM: Nice! But did you offer to buy him any toy he wanted like the previous commentator? Did he ask for a kite?
3
@LAMM
Your post gave me pause...I wonder how many earrings veterinarians remove from dogs?
4
This article resonates with me completely. I'm a slight earring hoarder. My youngest son and I once counted 90 pairs . But taking control I culled down to 40 pairs. That being said I have my favorites that when I wear them I'm transported back to a time and feeling where they just belonged as though an extension of my being. The tricolor metal parallelogram hanging ones I bought in my twenties that made me feel edgy yet smart. The Michael Michaud Japanese maple I bought in Woodstock NY on a vacation with my kids. I have a seared memory in my mind of them at those ages 7 and 11 laughing hysterically while feigning Ohming. And finally my simple 2" diamond cut Sterling hoops that are my go to most worn pair. I've lost one of them several times and trolled the trash etc . When I wear them I feel timeless because they prsent a simple elegance, sexiness, youthfulness, funkiness etc. All the extension of my being. And my best solution. I bought 2 pairs.
35
@Iris
Michael Michaud. I lost a sage earring by him and really want it back.
Good luck to all of us.
6
Check the website bestamericanarts. They may have them.
1
We grow so accustomed to our jewelry and it's a statement about who and what we are. When an earring goes missing, there's frequently a moment of panic and retracing our steps to see if we've misplaced it, or if it fell off in the night and might be sitting and waiting to be found: Proud of its momentary freedom.
Sometimes, my earring falls out when brushing my hair or shampooing in the shower. I'd like to super glue them to my lobes, but that would cause pain if entangled in my hair brush.
So, I endure those moments when something so precious and time-worn becomes a stray and I have to hunt it down. There are worse things in life. I've lost a few forever.
Lovely golden earbobs, come find me.
18
How lovely to see the word “earbob”. My father was the only person I ever heard that used this term for an earring. You made me smile and chuckle—thank you.
10
@Pamela L. Earrings on the lobes in the shower? For most of us that’d be the *easiest* was to lose at least one! I always make sure they’re off before I get into bed at night and they don’t go on until after I dry and brush my hair in the morning. I don’t have the same good luck you do!
2
@Carol Evans “earbobs”......My grandmother always called them that (in GA). Maybe it’s a Southern thing?
2
Love this! Thanks for the great ideas and very relatable piece.
16
I call my leftover earrings "orphans". I wear 2 orphans that "go together" ie 2 small gold hoops that are similar size, but different design. Or a silver triangle and a silver rectangle. Sometimes people tell me I'm wearing 2 different earrings thinking I don't know this. I'm not into multiple earrings in one lobe, but I love wearing my orphans. I even have some of my late mother's orphans that I wear with my orphans - makes me feel she is still with me.
50
@Liz K , brilliant idea .
1
I inherited my parents sterling flatware and a sterling bride's basket given to them by friends from the UK. I kept them in a locked storage unit with "24 hour video surveilence". I was living on my boat and felt the storage unit was much more secure. Wrong! It was broken into and everything gone. That was 1990 and I'm still not completely over the loss.
27
Speaking as someone who, sadly, has a collection of single earrings I can't bear to part with, I truly appreciated this fun article. I'd love to contribute to a lost earring chandelier project on this side of the Pond.
23
Nancy, your story resonated so with me. I still mourn a cheap earring I lost years ago, and have saved the survivor for no good reason that I can explain. But this kind of grief goes beyond the solitary earring for me. I had a pair of earrings I bought in Paris disappear somehow during a business trip. Years later I still look for something like them. I remember them as so special, even though they pinched a bit, and were hardly valuable. Over the years I've acquired a habit of feeling my ears to reassure myself that my earrings are both still there, surely a result of my loss. And that's not all. I'm obsessive about anything that's lost. I simply will not give up. I chased a hat that I lost on the track at a special event at the Indianapolis Speedway for a couple of hours, eventually getting it back in the mail through the efforts of a pair of wonderful strangers who sympathized. I painstakingly searched my mother's cluttered back porch for my dead grandmother's lost wedding ring. My mother's distress became mine. I simply had to find it. And I did. Now my Mom is gone too, and I wear the ring. What does any of it mean?
70
@Penny D.
"a habit of feeling my ears to reassure myself that my earrings are both still there"
I probably do that a hundred times a day. Even though I almost always wear earrings with backs on them.
16
I am in my late 40s, and I'm still sad about losing a charm from the charm bracelet I wore in my teens. I lost a special "Sweet 16" charm, which had been given to me by my Mom, while at school, and I still remember how a kind janitor helped me look for it. We dumped out trash bags to look for that little charm, and picked through the detritus caught by his wide sweeper that could span the breadth of a hallway. No luck, but we sure did try. (Thanks, Mr. Dykstra!)
87
@HeidiK
Kind maintenance and janitorial workers must spend countless hours in search of lost items for distressed owners.
2
This is so true! I have lost so many treasured earrings over the years, some expensive some not. Usually I lose them in the winter, if they are french hooks and they get caught on coats and scarves. One fell down the bathtub drain at my daughters house. One lovely pair of which I have one left was left in a bed in a Sonoma Hotel. I called but no one found it. Last summer I lost a pair of $300 pearl earrings that my husband had had made to match the pearl necklace my parents gave me on our wedding nearly 50 years ago. I lost them somewhere between SeaTac and Sacramento Airport. Filed numerous lost item reports at both airports and with Delta. No luck. One of the worst was the black Tahitian pearl earrings that fell out of my coat pocket in a Mall. The best thing that came out of that was that I had the remaining one made into a pendant and I wear it all the time. I have more stories but I am sure everyone does. If I leave the house without earrings on I feel undressed! Thank you for this story.
46
@Mary Tramel I completely relate feeling undressed without wearing earrings. Should we carry an emergency pair like we carry tissues or an aspirin?
16
@Iris I often do.
1
@Mary Tramel I've made emergency earring stops in dollar stores to avoid going naked.
2
Ha! I'll bet this article sparks a recognition in just about all women. I also have another theory on why an earring loss is so hard. Unlike other jewelry, an earring becomes a part of your visage. You look in the mirror and your face is enhanced and takes on the character of that little piece on your earlobe whether it's an elegant pearl or a funky boho dangle. The right earring makes me feel prettier, which is not something a ring or a bracelet can do no matter how stylish. Thus the trauma when we lose our favorite pair. It's like you've lost a tiny bit of what makes you attractive. I know that sounds trite but it's true.
Fifteen years ago I lost a pair of silver hoops that were just distinctive enough to make it a favorite yet not so much so that I could ever lose the hope of seeing something exactly the same out there somewhere. To this day I cannot move on and look for it anytime I'm near anything silver and dangly.
55
@Sparkly Violet Something about hoops. It would be interesting if a jewelry fashion expert could explain the draw to them. Is it the simplicity, a harkening to tribalism, the eternal continuousness of the shape?
3
As a man I have never understood why some women wear earrings.
In my view there is absolutely nothing unattractive about unadorned female ear lobes.
Pierced earrings are a potential menace. I have seen several women who are scarred for life because an assailant had ripped out an earring by pulling it thought the bottom of her ear lobe.
3
@scott ochiltree As men, there are a great many things we don't understand. Like fashion, and colors-that-go-with.
17
@scott ochiltree This is funny. As a man, I wear four, three on my left ear, one in my right. I only wear real earrings. My solution to losing one is replacing it with one that is more expensive. Where I live, almost every man wears at least one.
4
Earrings, more than all other forms of jewelry, offer a unique level of self expression. They are situated along the face, becoming part of one’s visage, a wonderful opportunity to incorporate color, shape, symbolism and meaning into one’s style. Personally, I’m a great fan of creating my own, largely from talismans, preferred stones and ancestral heirlooms- they are for my pleasure and presence alone.
8
Then there is the glorious moment when, 6 months after loosing a precious earring, (and spending countless hours tearing everything apart,) you find it behind a radiator, on the floor of a closet, in the sock drawer or underneath the stove.
82
Ach, I’ve lost so many and also have that orphan compartment in my jewelry box that I can’t seem to empty . When I’m looking for (paired) earrings I’ll sometimes get a pang if I think an orphan would’ve been a perfect complement to my outfit.
One time I even felt an earring fall off yet couldn’t find it on the floor right in front of me.
13
I can relate to the author of this piece--have a small collection of orphan earrings that I can't seem to part with; however, like the ideas she presented. Thank you!
11
It happened to me yesterday: "that sinking feeling" of fearfully wondering, "Did I just lose an earring?" I was in my car after parking it. I had just put the keys on a lanyard around my neck, as it is a bit of a hike home and I didn't want to be fumbling around for the house keys. My hand went to my earlobe as I held my breath, while unreasonably hoping that the earring was still stuck in its hold in my lobe. Nooooh! I left that disappointment when my fingertip touched my lobe and not the earring. It was too dark to really tell, but I thought I saw something silvery between the car seat and the side of the seat well. I tried to feel around for it. No luck. It wasn't on my coat; not on my shirt; not anywhere I could feel or see.
I got out of my car and jumped around, untucking my shirt and shaking it, so if the earring was inside, I would see and hear it fall to the pavement. More jumping: nothing.
After I walked back home, I was undressing when I sensed the earring as it fell to the bathroom floor. Oh, JOY! Next time I may not be so lucky. At least my solo earring collection takes up less space than the unpaired socks whose mates I refuse to give up on. Perhaps I also need Mr. Walsh.
49
I had a pair of gold clip-ons that I inherited from my Mom.
Lost one in my yard...mourned the loss... weeks later I noticed a glitter in the grass...MY gold clippy!
Another time,one popped off at the neighborhood grocery store parking lot...got home, went back, crawled around on my hands an knees, went inside..offered a $25 buck award....never found it...I still have the mate... Love it so much. Still never considered piercing my ears.
8
@Kimberly S
I totally understand the trauma of losing an earring. I wore a pair of diamond hoops that were the first splurge for me. I chose to wear my special earrings to a long-time friend's Thanksgiving dinner. On the way home from the dinner I realized that I was missing one of my diamond earrings. I panicked and called my friend and they searched their home for quite some time without finding the missing earring. I was sick and panicked and could not rest until I found it. I retraced every step with the flashlight at my home thinking that it might have been lost before I even left for dinner. Sure enough, I found it in the gutter in front of my house sitting on a pile of leaves glistening in the light! It fell out of my ear before I had even left. I have felt so guilty about bothering my friends on a lovely Thanksgiving dinner looking for a lost earring that wasn't there, but so relieved when I found it. Whew!What a lesson!
8
Oh dear - I thought the title of the article was "The Five Stages of Hearing Loss". Imagine how I felt when someone was mourning the loss of an EARRING as I am presently losing my hearing! I guess I need to get my vision checked as well!
141
Cynthia! Ditto ditto ditto. Since I’ve lost part of my hearing, I’ve also lost interest in my earrings. Funny what matters, right?
9
@Cynthia LOL Me too! I think that my left ear is in stage 3.
6
@Nell
Happily, you've all retained your senses of humor though.
If traditional hearing aids don't work for you, check out Bose Hearphones.
3
I lost one yesterday!! Somewhere between MCI and EWR - I had it on in Kansas City airport, and I didn’t have it when I got in the cab on this side. The annoying thing is I lost another one by the same jeweler (upstate in Hudson) a couple of months ago. That pair was lapis lazuli, this one is turquoise, and they’re the same teardrop design - and I think it’s my new AirPods - they don’t seem to get along with this design. I can send them to him and he’ll make replacements - that’s a nuisance and not cheap - but I guess at least I have the option, as long as I don’t combine then with my AirPods going forward!
6
I bought a pair of ruby heart earrings and discovered that I lost one of them at the memorial site of the Virginia Tech shootings. My ruby heart seemed like the right offering for that sad event and along with other lost earrings, I created a charm necklace to wear.
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@E.F Careful with that ruby—“virgin,” untreated rubies are strong and hard second only to diamonds ; but most stores (especially a dept. store that shall go nameless but rhymes with “Tract”) sell heat-treated or even “filled” rubies (cracks, as opposed to inclusions) are filled with a leaded glass compound. They are vulnerable to scratching, cracking again or even fully fracturing when ultrasonically-cleaned (the method most jewelers use). I wore mine (surrounded by diamonds) day in & day out, even in the shower—and one day last week a standalone jeweler pointed out the scratches & cracks.
Your ruby heart reminds me of a 1986 Jackson Browne song (“it was a ruby that she wore on a chain around her neck, in the shape of a heart...”).