in december 2009 i lost a valuable and special ring bryan gave me the christmas prior. or to be more accurate, i took this ring off and set it down in a public restroom to wash my hands, and walked away without it. of course upon discovering it was no longer on my finger, i returned to the restroom and begged the janitor for information. i begged lost and found for information. after heading home i continued to beg everyone and anyone for information. i posted a craig’s list ‘lost’ ad and couldn’t sleep that night in desperate hopes (and tears) that good news would come to me. but my phone never rang and i never received that email. it took about a week before i could admit to myself i’d never see that ring again.

for awhile i tried to just pray for that person, that woman who obviously had no qualms about walking off with someone else’s prized possession. that woman who could have so easily turned it in, and who should have. i tried to send up nice prayers, but really they ended up sounding more like, ‘i pray she suffers a long, miserable life suffocated by unhappiness,’ and ‘i hope her fingers are so fat it doesn’t even fit.’ i felt betrayed, by her, but also by our selfish culture.

my ring was not one-of-a-kind. it wasn’t passed down from a grandmother or found at a flea market in an exotic city. but it meant something to me. it represented over two years of our marriage, two years of grinding, gritty professional work bryan had unfailingly weathered to propel our lives forward. it was a sparkling, glittering reminder not only of this brief success but of hardship overcome, of difficult phases when it seemed our relationship didn’t or couldn’t come first. it was a marker of time past and a promise of more times of little and plenty to come. and so it felt very personal being ripped away like that – yes, because of its dollar value, but also because it was mine. i had too easily attached excessive emotional value to it.

it will sound strange to you (because things so shallow should pass by quickly), but i still struggle – a year and a half later  – with stripping the meaning of that ring from its object like packaging tape. it’s never a clean rip. i let it get too big. i placed too much emphasis on the treasure and it took a hold of me and my heart followed. that’s when it became powerful and ugly, a force ready for a long, heart wrenching fight.

i didn’t give permission for my ring to go, but i also will no longer give it permission to hold onto me like this, where i feel guilty and ungrateful and like i failed where it mattered. come alongside me and release the grip on your past regrets. they can be tangible or not. either way, it’s another one of those lessons that hurts and heals at the same time.

i once was lost but now am found …