My Most Prized Possession

Most people would assume that my passport is my most prized possession. Though it has brought me all around the world and back again, it isn’t the most important thing I own.

I was always super attached and very sentimental (as well as semi-superstitious as I feel like it’s bad luck not to have them on) in regard to my bracelets. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have any bracelets on, and I hate taking them off; I feel naked when I do.

But for some reason necklaces I wasn’t as attached to. I had a few that I liked and wore in rotation, but I wasn’t loyal to any particular one that way I religiously wear my bracelets. Then one Christmas when I was 21 I asked my father to buy me a cross. Though I was raised Catholic, I am not overly religious; I just wanted something that would sort of become a part of me.

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When I left to move overseas to Korea in 2010, I asked my father for two more charms: St. Michael and St. Christopher. Both my father and my older brother are named Michael, and my younger brother is named Christopher, and I wanted to carry them with me around the world. (On the road I learned many a traveler wears St. Christopher to stay safe and protected while traveling.)

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Additionally, my best friend Laura and her family got me a globe charm when I finished university just before I moved overseas. “I know you always wanted a globe tattoo, so maybe this will do for now,” Laura told me. (At that point, I was tattoo free, but that has since changed. Still no globe, though.)

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And so within a year my necklace grew and came to represent the most important people in my life: my family and my friends. I carried them with me to Korea, I carried them with me through my first big backpacking trip, and I carried them with me when I moved to Australia. No matter where I was or what i was doing, my family and friends were there with me the whole time.

For a while, there were no new charms and luckily nothing broke, despite the fact that I did everything imaginable under the sun with that necklace on. The only thing that changed was the original chain, which broke just before my two best friends came to see me back in February 2013.

In the past six months, though, I’ve made a couple of new additions. It was also about time for me to get a new chain, which I picked up just the other day. Just before I said goodbye to Sydney, my friends there got me a charm of the Opera House, which is hands down my favorite building in the world (sorry to every building in NYC) and one of the things I miss most about living in Sydney. It was meant for a charm for my Pandora bracelet, but instead I decided to put it on my necklace; the Opera House represents a time and place that was home to me, and the charm represents the people there who truly cared about me.

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A few months later when I was on the Gili Islands in Indonesia, I added a small piece of shell to my necklace. Some people hate on Gili T for being so touristics and backpacker-ish, but I loved the Gilis. But I made friends there that, for the first time since I had left Sydney, made me smile and laugh and feel good. The shell from Gili T reminds me of why I love traveling so much, and that feeling of getting stuck in a place with people who feel like family.

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There are a couple of charms I have in mind that I want to put on before my next trip (whenever that may be), but right now everything that is meant to be there – around my neck and so close to my heart – is there.

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Category: Random

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