The necklace was given from my mom, no, technically it was given from my daddy. It was his gift for her of being pregnant me. Later, she couldn’t wear it because of nursing me. So the necklace was gained, but barley worn both ‘because of me.’ When I became 18, the time when I moved out from my parents home for college in Seoul, she hand it over to me and said, ‘wear it everyday, and we are always be with you.’ Therefore I used to wear it everyday thinking it is like a guardian angel. Yes, actually there is a small illustration of an angel fights against a dragon on the tail of the pendant, and the portrait of Elizabeth II on the front side. Later, I realized that one of my friend who is British, and told me that it looks like an old British coin. Then I asked my daddy, whether there’s a something special story behind it, unfortunately, his answer was ‘no.’ That was just a trendy thing at that time in Korea.

Later I bought that watch from my first salary. I chose gold color to match my necklace. I was trying to get into good habit— don’t be hurry, not being late— so I set my watch 5 minutes earlier than the real time. However that didn’t work on me at all. Because I knew that it is 5 minutes earlier than usual, so I remembered every time that I have extra 5 minutes.

Since these two things are so valuable and meaningful to me, therefore, I used to wear these two things everyday until I was 22. I gave up wearing two things together; one reason is that I was too young to wear that necklace with a huge golden pendant. It didn’t suit on my age, and sometimes people judged me by what I am wearing, and they were curious about what I have, about my wealth, not about myself tho. They might think I was bragging and pretending too posh. Secondly, once the loop of pendant was broken and fell off, so I took the whole necklace off being afraid of losing it. It has been few years that I haven’t worn them though, I always keep them in a red pocket and put inside my ‘secret box’ in my drawer. When I feel depressed or lonely, I open the box, pull out and polish them, it is my self-meditation as well as my secret remedy for my depression by feeling my parents’ love.

-Hayoung