Every day, I wear an Italian charm bracelet I curated at a vintage store in Cambridge. Despite wearing it every day, the only signs of wear are the minimal dents and scratches in the silver. Other than that, it looks the same as the day I made it.
As I stood over the shallow boxes packed full of loose square charms, I thought about what a poor financial investment making a charm bracelet would be. I looked down at the bracelet I already had. Iridescent opal beads clinging to my wrist. As I fidgeted with my bracelet, I snapped the elastic. Opal beads cascaded into rainbows onto the wooden floor. It felt almost serendipitous, like a sign from the universe that my opal beads had served their purpose. My new Italian charm bracelet would be my rebound. With the fallen remains now in my pockets, I collected new charms from the boxes.
Three blank charms mark the beginning and end of my bracelet. I thought I would use blanks as temporary placeholders for when I came back to the shop to buy more. That was over a year ago, and the blanks remain where they’ve always been.
The first charm I chose was the symbol of my zodiac sign: the waves of Aquarius. When I brought the charms to the cashier to check out, she told me she was also an Aquarius. She said she had heard 2026 would be our luckiest year yet. Having lived through most of the year now, I’m not sure I believe her anymore. But the sentiment excited me.
Looking at the diamond symbol next to it reminds me of a suit on a playing card. I learned a single card trick last summer to impress someone I wanted to be friends with after I learned she thought they were cool. I carried a deck in my purse every day so we could play Go Fish at any moment. We still talk about how I beat her in it every time.
I picked up a crescent moon to go next to a black star charm. I have a widget saved to my iPhone background that shows the daily moon phases. It was intended for aesthetic purposes, but it’s shockingly handy. If someone tells me they’re having a strange day, I check whether there will be a full moon that could be causing bad luck. I compare the moon phases my friends and I were born under—mine was a waning gibbous.
Another charm is a yin-yang. I was taught to follow feng shui with my furniture, to the point that certain things make me unreasonably anxious. The mirror on my desk must be turned away from me while I sleep, the foot of my bed can never directly face the door, and my desk chair is always pushed in.
A pair of cherries joined by the stem stuck out to me. For several years, my hair was dyed a deep cherry red. When it started to fade and my natural brown peeked through, my sense of individuality went with it. One year, instead of my usual cherry red, I accidentally bought the wrong shade and was stuck with clown-nose red hair. Of course, that color faded the slowest.
My bracelet includes two evil eye charms: one 3D and blue, and the other flat and silver. I have always believed that evil eyes absorb negative energy, so I surround myself with as many as possible. Surprisingly, I’ve never had one break yet, which is what they are supposed to do when they’ve served their purpose, especially since I assume I’m one of the unluckiest people on this planet. I need as much help as I can get.
A butterfly lay between the evil eyes. Every fall, my mom would drive me to my hometown’s State Monarch Reserve at the beach. During the monarch migration, the butterflies made a pit stop just 10 minutes away from me. A swarm of orange and black wings consumed the green leaves on the trees, becoming a joint life form in the vast forest. The leaves never turned orange and yellow in California fall, but the monarchs did it for us.
Those blank spaces still exist today, pointing inward so no one can see that my bracelet is unfinished. Wearing it every day has left a gap on my wrist that is slightly paler than the rest of my arm, and the metal leaves indentations on my skin when I take it off. I hope to fill those last three blank spaces and to add in the memories I’ve made since last year.