THE RING
I recently had a breakthrough. Not a major breakthrough, but a breakthrough nonetheless. I was getting ready for work one day and it occurred to me that the engagement ring I had housed in my jewelry box would look really nice with an outfit I had chosen for the day. It really is beautiful: simple, yet elegant in all of its emerald cut glory. It has been more than a year and half since this ring donned my left ring finger and I found myself wondering if it would be all right to put it back on. After all, the very thing it represented was no longer present, yet this beautiful piece of jewelry sat alone, embedded between my grandmother’s engagement ring and my old wedding band. It wasn’t serving a purpose any longer, but I also couldn’t take my eyes off of it this particular day.
Society tells you that when your marriage is ending or it has ended, the rings must be removed. It’s the perception that it is a normal progression forward. Acceptance that the end has arrived. There are many who elect not to wear a ring, too. Wearing a ring doesn’t make you any more married than being legally married to someone. I’ve witnessed countless scenarios where two committed individuals didn’t need to conform to a standard that “everyone else” expected and perceived as “normal”. They were more committed to one another than most “visibly” married people I know. People remove their ring for a number of reasons, too: when they can no longer trust their partner; when their partner cheats; when they feel neglected or unappreciated; in spite of their partner; or because they are tired of presenting themselves as married when the relationship with their partner doesn’t mirror with the term married.
For whatever reason it may be, it’s often highly personal and there is a definitive emotional distinction between feeling married and no longer feeling married. A feeling that engulfs you, really. I remember the precise moment I removed my ring and why. It was a month before my annual Indianapolis 500 trip in 2016 with my little sister from ZTA. I was standing at my jewelry box removing the jewelry I had worn for the day and it was in this moment that I questioned why I still had my rings on my hand.
After all, I had been living alone for more than two years in 2016. Raising my son and my stepdaughter. Working 55-60 hours per week. Keeping up with the bills. The groceries. Sick kids. School activities. If something broke, it was on me to ensure it got repaired. All. Of. The. Things. There was no one else to depend upon and I was supposedly married. The person who was supposed to be my partner was absent by choice. Prior to this night, I had many moments of clarity since 2014 when my spouse left. But this one was different. It was my final moment of clarity. I knew that I would no longer be able to look past this moment. The life I agreed to didn’t exist. And if it was all going to be on me anyway, I might as well embrace the journey alone. Mentally, I had checked out a year before this moment occurred, merely going through the motions. But it was in this moment I became empowered to quit living a lie and proceed forward with the life I had failed to realize I had created for myself.
So that night, my rings came off with the rest of my jewelry and sat in the jewelry box alone; just as I was alone on the journey ahead.
The next day I continued forward alone, just as I had for a large part of my relationship well in to my marriage. And oddly, it was a sense of release. Release of the anger, resentment, and frustration. I let go of the life I expected and realized the life I had in front of me. And mostly, I let go of the person I thought would be there for me through all of life’s ups and downs. I felt freed from my own internal prison and I knew I would survive.
Once upon a time, my rings were a symbol of something. Of someone. A promise of a life with someone with whom I dedicated myself; and him to me. To honor one another. To love one another. A promise for better or for worse. And on this day in 2017 in the aftermath, I stood there trying to remember these things and I fell short. All I saw when I stood there looking at my engagement ring was something that reminded me of survival. I was on the other side and there was no going back, and I didn't want to. I felt relief. Absolution. I survived and I was living the life I had imagined.
And I smiled.
I smiled not because I remembered the proposal or the vows; I smiled because I learned something and I grew. I smiled because I remembered the moment I crossed over to the side of reason instead of continuing to live in the fantasy world of it will work itself out. Because it never worked itself out. It never works itself out; it takes two people. I smiled because sometimes when we think we are doing the right thing, we aren’t and we need to have the strength to walk away. And I smiled because in this moment I knew I had made the right decision for me and my son.
So, I decided to put the ring back on…the right hand, of course.
Statement pieces can be powerful…in more ways than one.
-BWT
“If you understand something, you don’t forgive it, you are the thing itself: forgiveness is for what you don’t understand.”