Ritual One. Earrings

I don't even remember when they became my earrings.

There wasn't a moment. No decision that this pair would be the pair. They simply stayed on the bedside table for a while, then found their way back onto my ears each morning until reaching for them became as automatic as putting the kettle on.

Some mornings I fasten them before I've even looked in the mirror. I make coffee. I open the curtains. I check I've got my keys. I lock the front door. By then they're already part of the day, so familiar that I stop noticing them altogether.

Now when I look in the mirror, I recognise them as me. Worn every day. Marked gently by time. Folded into the rhythm of ordinary life.

Ritual Two. Ring

It became part of the choreography of the day.

It tapped softly against a glass while I washed up. It turned absentmindedly between my fingers while I waited for the bath to run. It caught the light as I typed on my computer, glinting before disappearing back into the movement of my hands.

One day I left the house without it. I didn't realise until halfway through the day. My hand felt strangely unfamiliar, as though I'd forgotten something that had always belonged there. I couldn't have told you what I was missing until I looked down at my fingers.

Ritual Three. Bangle

I kept rolling it back and forth along my wrist, I liked feeling the weight of it. Letting it settle into place. Becoming familiar with where it belonged.

I suppose that's how some things become part of us. Not all at once, but slowly, until we can no longer remember what it felt like before they were there.