I wear a ring on my left ring finger. The finger that is for brides. But I’m not a bride anymore. I was once. But not anymore.
The ring I bought when I was married. I bought it during a time when I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring anymore. Because my husband had hurt my heart one too many times. It had been almost a decade of abuse and adultery and I could take it no more, so I stopped wearing my wedding ring. It felt good. Like a real “Fuck you” to him. To our marriage. To his attitude and general being. He was an asshole. Then I started rehearsal for a show with new people and I didn’t wear my wedding band. That was okay. Most of the people there knew I was married, but the new ones didn’t. I kinda liked feeling like I wasn’t married when I was. I had an affair during that show. I don’t think not wearing my wedding band did it, but it certainly dressed the stage. Then I started rehearsals for a new show with all new people and I thought, ya know this is kinda trickery not wearing a wedding band, advertising that I’m single. That’s not fair to anyone, so I should wear something. But I’m not gonna wear that shitty ring that means nothing. But I need to wear something. So I drove to James Avery, THE Texas jewelry store and found a ring for me to wear on my left ring finger. It’s silver and it consists of small rings encircling my finger but it’s one solid piece. The individual rings are kinda twisty and broken looking. I liked it because that’s how my marriage felt – broken. My marriage ended and I continued seeing the man I had an affair with. He gave me a ring after we’d dated a couple years. It is my favorite ring I’ve ever received, let alone ever seen. It was his great aunt’s and it looks like it was made for my hand. It’s so beautiful. But that man has hurt my heart a lot lately, and so I stopped wearing that ring. It started feeling hollow and the ring started losing its status. I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Well, relationships really. Broken hearts and stolen hopes. Hopes that one day I’d be happily married. I’m not married anymore, but I feel I know marriage better than most people. I relate to the married and the single folk and the parents and the single parent folks. And in the midst of relating to so many different kinds of people and nursing my breaking heart as another man steals my focus and shatters my dreams, I put the ring back on. To remind me that I’m indeed broken, but that marriage was never too far from my reality nor my heart and that the ring I wear on my left hand is for me, bought by me and no one else and that God is kinda my husband right now. Funny, but the affair man commented on this ring yesterday. Said he liked it. That felt weird. BJ
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