67 Reflection Chapter: Three Rings and Three Promises
Well, after last week's blog, this one makes sense as a follow-up.
At some point, I started wearing jewelry. I think it was around 2013 when I slowly started wearing it more often. I started with leather bracelets, and I still wear those. I actually feel weird with nothing around my wrist.
Later, I started wearing rings. I think I bought my first one around 2013 too, but didn't wear it often.
Long before I started wearing rings and leather bracelets daily, I had a white gold bracelet I bought when I was 18. I bought it after my last summer job. But since I worked in construction in the years that followed, I didn't wear it very often. Until one day, I decided to start wearing it daily.
It got dented and scratched, and eventually I stopped wearing it because I didn't want to damage it any further. But by that time, it was too late. It was really worn, but I put it away in hopes of getting it restored one day.
Years later, close to a decade I believe, I went to a jeweler and asked if it was possible to melt it down into a ring. I had started wearing rings more often, and the bracelet looked like scrap metal. It had gotten too damaged.
He said, "Of course," and told me to pick one from this huge catalog. I saw a nice one that I really liked, so I gave him the bracelet to be melted down.
Weeks later, I went to pick it up. The ring was pretty wide. Right there and then, I asked the guy, "Hey, do you think that in the future we could cut this in two and make two rings out of it?"
The guy smirked at me and said yes. Then he asked if I had somebody in mind.
I said, "I haven't met her yet."
He replied, "Well, if you do, we can even put a small diamond in it if needed."
In that moment, I decided that one day the ring would be split in two, and the other half would be for my future wife.
Weird how, in a split second, I made such a decision. Thinking about it years later, it seems a little novelistic and romantic. And now you understand that the old me always wanted to get married.
I still wear that ring very often. The original bracelet was something I bought when I was 18, and with time it gained more sentimental value. There is also that promise linked to it. If I ever marry, I would like my wife to wear the other half, if I ever split it in two.
There is only one person I ever told about it. I bet she forgot. Well, then again, I never told her this in detail either.
Lately, and especially after last week's blog, I don't know if that promise will ever be realized. But I hope the ring somehow stays in the family or goes to someone I care about.
I can only hope.
The second ring is more recent.
I got it a couple of months after my nan passed away. My mom said, "Here, take this money and go buy something as a remembrance of Llalla."
When she had just passed away, I asked if I could have the wedding ring of my late grandfather, whom I never knew. Sadly, that went to my uncle. I'm happy it stayed in the family, but I would have loved to have it.
The anniversary of my nan's death was also this past week, on 26/08.
Talk about timing.
With the money my mom gave me, I bought a silver ring with a black stone.
The promise I linked to this one is simple: whatever happens in life, stay kind and be there for the people you love, just like my grandmother was.
Well, I don't know if it's really a promise. I think I just don't want my grandmother worrying about me up there in heaven. I try to stay positive, like she was, which was rather hard the last few years when I had my depression.
And this brings me to the last ring and promise. This last one is also recent, but it probably makes sense if you know me.
It's a signet ring with a wolf on it.
"It's my precious."
The ring itself isn't really special, but when I wear it, it usually calms me down and keeps me grounded. It reminds me that I can make it and that I'm not necessarily alone.
This ring is about courage and confidence, which is why I wear it on my pinkie.
I bought it because I always wanted a signet ring and liked what signet rings usually represent. I can't retrace my family tree to find the family symbol, so I decided to go with an animal I've loved since I was a child: a wolf.
I rarely wear all three of them at the same time.
But each of them has a meaning that runs deeper than this blog could possibly explain.
Out of my small ring collection, those are the three I really wouldn't want to lose. The white gold one connects me to a future promise, the black one to the past, family and tradition, and the wolf ring gives me courage when I wear it, so I guess that one is the present.
So if you ever see me wearing any of these, then you know the story behind them.
I think I wanted to write this blog because the old me made a promise to that white gold ring, a promise I hope to realize someday.