While getting dressed for a long-awaited date night this weekend, I reached for the first piece of jewelry my husband gifted me long, long ago in a land far away back when our relationship was still shiny, new, and exciting. I remember the air coming out of my lungs when he handed me my very first (and last, to be honest) Tiffany blue bag. The delicate silver necklace inside featured a silver “x” with a tiny little “o” diamond embedded. It was elegant and still a little playful. Perfect.
I don’t remember the last time I wore it, and a shortcut to all those early relationship feels seemed like a good idea for date night. But when I held it closer to see the clasp, I realized the entire necklace had turned black except the small diamond at the center. I almost cried. The air came out of my lungs, a different way this time. My thoughts raced: How did I ruin it?; What did I do wrong the last time I wore it?; How could I have been so careless?; It can’t come back from this! It was quite the run-away, and I almost dropped it into the garbage until I remembered it’s silver; it’s just tarnish and got to work. It took a whole lot of thumb and forefinger grease and a jewelry polishing cloth that may never recover, but by golly, I got the shiny silver polished back into being.
Seeing the shine come back felt larger than the necklace. It felt symbolic of my 43-year-old self, my marriage, my family, my home. These last years, I’ve noticed tarnish everywhere I look. I repainted almost every ceiling and wall in my house during Covid lockdown. Now the forgotten once-white baseboards haunt me with their scuffs, dings, and grime. Our cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms are beginning to show wear, which wears on my nerves. The back door doesn’t quite latch correctly anymore, and the slightest breeze will blow it wide open when no one is near. It feels like a haunting. Some mornings when I catch my reflection in the mirror, I don’t recognize the face looking back at me. When I look at old photographs, I see a sparkle in my eyes that I’m afraid has smoldered out now. The years have shifted everything just so. The lost luster has taken its toll, and some days I wonder if it’s time to throw the old into the rubbish bin and start again. Most days, just the thought makes me tired.
It helps to be reminded. It’s just tarnish. It’s a part of the life cycle. It’s not ruined. I wasn’t careless. I can come back from this. We can come back from this. We don’t need to start new. We can continue from here.
It all felt like a big moment with a deep message. And then my newly minted 8-year-old came in with the biggest surprise zinger. He had been watching me with some curiosity as he flitted about his own activities and he finally asked what I was doing as I neared the end of my polishing task. I explained that the necklace had tarnished and turned black and I was polishing it back to its original, beautiful state. I opened a photo on my phone of the tarnished necklace, and proudly declared “doesn’t it look so much better?” Without so much as looking up at me, he calmly said “I kind of liked it the old way. I like the black.”
And crud, if that isn’t the trickiest part of aging. When to polish? When to embrace the tarnish? When to improve? When to get comfy in the changes? When to start new? When to settle into the familiar? When to strive and when to accept? I suppose the takeaway is that everything precious changes. Embrace the tarnish or polish your silver — take your pick — but always remember there’s precious metal under those layers, and let that diamond shine on as the years flow. There’s beauty in the change, too. Elegant and still a little playful persists, even if the luster is different now.
