I am not sure I have mentioned it before, but I have tremors. In the past couple of years, they have gone from moderate to significant. (Both typing and eating have become difficult, although still possible. Between tremors and recurrent vertigo, I cannot drive.) I tell people to think of me as Katherine Hepburn in her last few years, but without the looks, talent, or money.

I still wear earrings. It takes me quite a while every morning to get them in, but I don’t want to lose the muscle memory it takes. Not to mention that if I don’t, the holes in my ears close up, and with the tremors I don’t want thave them re-pierced.

A couple of days ago I found a very long-lost earring. I liked these earrings: 10 mm light creamrose faux Swarovski pearl (because Swarovski is the best) and 6mm dark indigo Swarovski bicones. They match my hair. (Did I mentioned I dyed my hair blue? It was that or get a tattoo, and the tattoo parlors were closed.)

These earrings had been gone long enough that the sterling silver ear wires were tarnished. Putting tarnished ear wires in your lobes may be perfectly safe, but it makes me nervous.

So I changed out those wires for surgical steel. It took me twenty minutes, three different wires, and the ball and spring were sort of mangled in the end, but the earrings are wearable.

I used to bead and wirework. It was my chief creative outlet. I can’t do that, now: the last attempt drove me to tears. So even attempting this simple repair was a big deal. Before the tremors, it would have taken me two minutes — five at the outside, nowhere as long as it did today.

So I fought a simple battle, and won.

Go me.