The Ring

 

      Earlier this week I came across an old gold-plated watch Robert gave me in the 80's. It was a fashion watch made by Gucci which at the time I thought was so sleek. Feeling a whiff of nostalgia I thought I might wear it again. I put it on but then observed that it clashed with my platinum wedding ring so I dug out my old gold wedding ring, the one I had designed around my grandmother's barely-one-carat diamond. I slipped it on and studied it for a moment. How special that this diamond belonged to my beloved grandmother.  How sufficient it looks on my hand after all. Why did I want something else to replace it?  I then begin examining my platinum ring with its two-carat stone that Robert gave me for our 25th because I decided I deserved a bigger diamond after all these years because he didn't have a ring to give me when we married (my mother stepped in with her old ring and then later gave me her mother's as well) and so he coughed up big cash to get this thing which I now in this moment think how unnecessary that was and how out of character for me to even want a big diamond but I felt somehow I was extracting some sacrifice of him to make which he did make happily and it actually in some way did exactly the thing I was after in that he metaphorically bowed before me with a gift supposedly worthy of my value. I see now it was not the ring but the pain of the cost of the ring that mattered to me. As shallow as that sounds I do understand the value in that exercise and I nod to the wisdom of social customs that exist to illustrate love and devotion. A gift that is procured at great cost is meant to represent the value the giver puts on the object of his love. The ancients have always known that sacrifice is an instrument to prove worth; a physical thing must be given to represent the metaphysical.

       However, years later, standing alone in my closet, I look at the ring with a sudden and new understanding that the gift did its job and really holds no further purpose. Now I feel remorse.  Robert gave me a gift terribly expensive and terribly useless just to fulfill my wish.  That he even made attempts to satisfy my irrational desires is a marvel to me today. The ring was an expensive token in the game of love. The message of devotion was given-- the ring is just a symbol. I don't need it. This man loves me beyond all measure.  I feel the message loud and clear now.

     Tonight in a spill of revelation I shared all my new understanding with him.  I thanked and simultaneously apologized to him for ever wanting the ring. You must really love me to put up with stupid customs, I said. We could sell it, I insisted. I could part with it so easily today. I poured out insight after insight to him in a rush of sudden understanding. He listened, amused and surprised at the topic, while I heaped praises on him for loving me so through all my arrogance.

     The more I carried on the more the revelation expanded. Like wiping away the frost from a window I was rapidly reciting to my audience of one every new insight as it appeared.  How many times have I excitedly rushed to tell him my stories, my thoughts, and opinions. This one particular man listening to me rhapsodize, my God, I see it now--is a hero. Here we lay on the bed, me bombarding him with my razor-sharp perceptions as they explode apart in my head like fireworks; him looking directly into my excited eyes and listening with every molecule present but comfortable and relaxed on one elbow against the propped up pillows listening to his screwball wife excitedly share her stream of enlightened epiphany.  A man is listening to me with a grinning curiosity and mirth.  Isn't that my deepest desire? This man has always listened to me, has always found me intensely interesting, has always shushed the world just to hear me speak. How often I've commanded his attention like I owned it just to satisfy my need to unload my thoughts.

     I see that I have asked a lot of my husband. I've demanded his attention. I've directed his life. I've justified my many abuses of him because I judged myself as the prize and he the pursuer.  I've judged him harshly and often wished for a replacement, for something better. It turns our that the first ring, the first man--was more than I deserved.