Collarbones & Courage: Why We Cling to What Dangles

I’ve always envied how Frida Kahlo turned her necklaces into armor—layers of pre-Columbian jade, twisted ribbons, oxidized silver. Each piece a defiance, a refusal to let pain erase her vibrancy. There’s something primal about adorning the throat, the body’s most vulnerable axis. To decorate it is to declare: Here I am. Unbroken.

My own "armor" is a dime-store chain with a key pendant, bought during a solo road trip after a divorce. It’s cheaply made, tarnishing at the edges, but when sunlight hits it during morning coffee, I’m reminded of that unshakable week when I relearned my own name.

Across cultures, necklaces symbolize what we dare to claim. Viking warriors buried with twisted torcs as proof of valor. Maasai brides wearing concentric bead loops as maps of lineage. A teenager slipping a LGBTQ+ pendant under her shirt before coming out. They’re not ornaments—they’re bridges between who we are and who we’re becoming.

What hangs from your neck? A relic? A rebellion? A whispered wish? However small, it’s a monument to the fact that you’re here, breathing, insisting on taking up space in a world that often asks you to fold.