With(out) This Ring

Today's post is illustrated courtesy of realitytvgifs.tumblr.com/, because me loves me Housewives.

I remember the day I stopped wearing my wedding ring. I decided on a Sunday afternoon that I would be legally dissolving my marriage, the emotional dissolution having been marching on slowly for months. I told my wasband about that on Tuesday, during a rooftop confrontation that was charged with the anger, betrayal and brokenness that only plays out poetically in movies. (They never show snot in movies, which is #1 on my list of why movies do not represent real life. I never Come Undone without a worrisome quantity of snot.)

 

The next Saturday I rose, dressed, put the diamond band in the jewelry box and had a manicurist paint my nails red. It has not quite been five months yet, but I still have a damn indentation on my ring finger, and I still absentmindedly play with the phantom wedding band. I'm working on finding the right piece of bling to take over on that finger. Other than sending a picture of my bare finger and red nails to my posse, it was an unceremonious end to the partnership between my ring and me.

 

The decision to sell it was also done with a minimum of fuss. I am superstitious, and giving one of my boys a ring from a busted marriage for his intended in twenty years would certainly damn the union. My wasband bought me a diamond pendant and a diamond promise ring in high school, and I had a pendant made for my sister with those stones. I guess I believe that things of beauty and value that were given as tokens of love and commitment during a relationship tarnish and turn black when the relationship does, so I do not hold on to the trinkets. A regift in a new setting shoos the voodoo.

 

The point of all of this is that my wedding ring set was sold at auction today. I am choosing to focus on the triumph of selling the ring, rather than it being yet another tangible milestone in the death of my marriage.

But my life is all about next chapters, so with some of the proceeds of the sale of my ring, I bought myself a plane ticket to go see Virginia, and meet Virginia's new baby boy. I have such joy for my soul sister in Virginia that she gets to launch this epic adventure that is motherhood, complete with things that bite and those dragons that hiss at you. My joy for her reflects my sorrow for myself, because we were supposed to have babies together. That was the plan. Not for her to have a baby with the love of her life while I got divorced from the love of mine.

Whatever will be, will be. And I'm super excited about it.

This weekend I visited a friend from high school, and as luck would have it, his sister was there with a brand spanking new baby GIRL. A baby girl like the one I was promised and abandoned before I was given, like the one my life will eventually become a march to find. It is uncharacteristic of me to stay away from the babies, but it took a while for me to even get curious about her. She is a preemie, light and little, with every feature porcelain perfection, the idyllic kind of baby who makes her mouth into a particularly tiny "o". I held her, fed her, burped her, watched her sleep, examined every limb and bump and crevice, and I felt no sadness. Only the light and life of a baby girl that I am in no way ready for.

 

 

I have written before about how we get what we need when we need it, that the gifts we need and the direction we're given are presented to us at precisely the moment we should have them, and a glimpse of their identity does not come a second before. It's all a surprise, living an open and brave life. A bending, breaking, lifting, healing, solving surprise, and the trick is to know when you see it that this is the lifeline you should grab tight and swing far to get to the next survive or thrive. My friend's niece was the primer to get me ready for my trip, to make sure I am ready to cherish a gift given to someone else that blesses me too. Selling my wedding ring gave me the discretionary funds to get there. So I am ecstatic to go see Virginia and meet her son, who belongs to me a little bit anyway, because his mother is my sister friend. And my sunshine.