He may have gone to Jared, but She had breakfast at Tiffany’s.  Within the past year, I have started a new tradition for myself.  It is buying myself jewelry.  Not just cutesy, trendy pieces, but classic pieces that can be passed down to my children someday (or my sister’s little baby blueberry, since that’s the closest thing I currently have as an heir to my CoCo-ness).  Don’t get me wrong, I do love myself a big, gaudy fashion piece, but those end up being well loved for a short time, and then usually break or go out of style within a year.  I’m sure somewhere there is someone groaning at the fact that I am spending my money on baubles instead of investing it in something more serious, but these are emotional investments that are pretty and I love them.

It all started with a set of pearl earrings.   They were a gift with a major emotional investment.  I will spare you the drama of my first real pearl earrings, but to show you a bit of what went down, the first time I received them was two years before I actually was able to keep them.  Lots of tears went in to getting those babies!  Once I had them for keeps, I loved them!  Nothing makes you feel more like a lady than a set of pearl earrings.  One day, I took them off and left them in my bathroom.  [Side note: For those of you who don’t know, I live with one of my good friends who has been raising her niece.  She’s twelve and comes with everything you would expect from a twelve year old girl with a side of extra sass.  I really would take any drama a 12 year old can dish out any day than deal with drama of living with someone closer to my age, and her aunt and I never have drama, so this is actually a pretty decent set up, and most days are really fun.  I know I don’t like living alone, and I can’t think of any other friends I would rather be living with.  Plus, I kind of like the fact that our neighbors are freaked out by the weird “lesbian” couple next door… Because we both like guys… but I digress]  Well, little girl cleaned the bathroom the following day and that was the last time I saw one of those pearls.  I don’t know if it went down the sink, in the trash or vacuum, but I tore that bathroom apart.  It was gone.  I just had one little lonely pearl. It broke my heart a bit to lose it, but at the same time, it brought me an odd sense of closure to the drama that came with the actual obtaining of the pearls.

So, obviously, when I went to Hawaii last year, #1 on my list was to open up an oyster and get a pearl for my lonely pearl I had lost.  Well, that didn’t pan out quite as I had planned.  Opening pearls is an exceptionally magical experience, and I know I totally fell deep into the tourist trap, but I loved it!  Hello!  You greet them into the world with a great big “ALOHA” and they have little belly buttons!  I opened several oysters and had two necklaces and a double pearl ring made and bought myself a set of earrings that were bigger than my original pearls (I also left with a very cute Hawaiian’s number.  Gotta love that Hawaiian men go for something they like when they see it!).  These pearls made me so much happier than the first set.  For one, the whole experience around buying them, but I realized I get a special high when I buy myself things that many women expect men to buy them.  It’s liberating!

As a continuation of my pearl high, my parents bought me a beautiful full strand of pearls for Christmas that came with another set of pearl earrings that matched.  I was really sick on Christmas day this year, so I honestly can’t tell you if I was as excited about getting this strand from my parents as I was about my Hawaiian pearls.  I basically opened them up, smiled, and went back to bed to watch Gossip Girl and sleep the rest of the day.  I do love wearing them, though, and appropriate for the show I watched almost immediately after receiving them, a little Blair Waldorf comes out of me every time I wear my strand of pearls.  In a good way, of course.

My newest addition is my right hand ring from none other than Tiffany’s.  I have wanted a right hand ring since the 2008 marketing campaign by De Beers and The Diamond Trading Company that told women of the world to raise their right hand.  I loved the idea of women buying  a ring to put on their right hand to show what they have accomplished themselves.  Plus, should I ever receive a left-hand ring, I definitely won’t be expecting it to come from Tiffany’s.  Their engagement rings are enormously overpriced.  I am pretty simple in my style, and I didn’t want a ring that would detract.  I love rose gold and wanted just a simple band.  When I was trying rings on, they sold me on a romanticized story of their 175 anniversary metal called Rubedo.  It looks like rose gold, but is a blend of gold, copper, and silver.  Apparently, Charles Lewis Tiffany was some sort of metal innovator, so they wanted to make an alloy in honor of him for the anniversary.  There is a simple brand stamp, along with the year 1837 and Tiffany’s signature.  Perfect for me!  Plus, the high when walking out of that store with my very own blue box tied with a white bow was exhilarating.  Yes, to all cynical marketers, I did fall in to every trap that was set from the 2008 campaign to the white bow, but you can’t take away that feeling.

I’m already plotting my next gift to me.  I’m obsessed with lockets, and I am quite certain it will be in that category.  If I can afford it by then, a Charles Green locket.  Regardless, I love this new little tradition of gifting to myself and I fully recommend it!  It is fabulous!  Even if you have to pull an Audrey and go stare in the window of Tiffany’s every day until you can afford it (even if all you can ever afford is just getting your cracker jack ring engraved), it’s a better feeling than having different men throw diamonds at you simply because you told them to, like Marilyn.  Don’t forget, one of them died tragically, and the other lived a long, classy life!