Refraction

There is a missing vintage diamond ring on a dusty country road somewhere in Missouri. A very important and special teacher gave me her promise ring (with permission from my mother) when I was young and most likely, because I wasn’t from exactly a “well to do” background. She told me to hold on to it forever and never forget her and told me how special I was. I never thought I would ever receive something like that in my life! How magical life is. I didn’t realize the true value the ring would play in my life at the time. It lit a fire under my dreams as a child that I could do anything. Remember that feeling? It’s the best. My dear teacher was elegant, beautiful and so kind to everyone, a bit how I imagined Snow White to be. I would spend hours staring at the ring and pretending I was her as young girls love to admire anyone who resembles a princess.

Fast forward many years later and I naively put that ring on my high school boyfriends car rear-view mirror. We later broke up and I had strung the ring on a gold necklace because I didn’t want him to forget me quite yet as young love makes you want to cling to everything like it’s the last time you’ll ever experience it and a reason to see him later ‘down the road.’ I could not foresee that soon after this, he got into a horrific car accident along some country road one night that intuitively woke me straight out of bed. The intuitive feeling can best be described as one knows the feeling something bad has happened and one cannot explain how you know. I find people from the south are more in touch with these clairvoyant sensations opposed to city folk. There is a missing vintage diamond ring on a dusty country road somewhere in Missouri. A very important and special teacher gave me her promise ring (with permission from my mother) when I was young and most likely, because I wasn’t from exactly a “well to do” background. She told me to hold on to it forever and never forget her and told me how special I was. I never thought I would ever receive something like that in my life! How magical life is. I didn’t realize the true value the ring would play in my life at the time. It lit a fire under my dreams as a child that I could do anything. Remember that feeling? It’s the best. My dear teacher was elegant, beautiful and so kind to everyone, a bit how I imagined Snow White to be. I would spend hours staring at the ring and pretending I was her as young girls love to admire anyone who resembles a princess.

Fast forward many years later and I naively put that ring on my high school boyfriends car rear-view mirror. We later broke up and I had strung the ring on a gold necklace because I didn’t want him to forget me quite yet as young love makes you want to cling to everything like it’s the last time you’ll ever experience it and a reason to see him later ‘down the road.’ I could not foresee that soon after this, he got into a horrific car accident along some country road one night that intuitively woke me straight out of bed. The intuitive feeling can best be described as one knows the feeling something bad has happened and one cannot explain how you know. I find people from the south are more in touch with these clairvoyant sensations opposed to city folk.

The ring was tragically lost in this accident and I was so sad for years and years and years about it. It was the only thing I had worth any money in that small town I grew up in and maybe I had hoped it would be worth enough to get me out of there and into the big wide world. But lo and behold the ring had already taught me I was enough and didn’t need it all. But the dreamer side (and obsessive side) of me knew although it was gone forever, I secretly longed for karma to bring the ring back into my life somehow, because I’ve seen Titanic one too many times.

My grandmother passed away my senior year in high school and she had a sage, velvet lined jewelry box with a ballerina in it who is reflected in an oval mirror. I would wind the key in the back and the ballerina would twirl in a haunting like pirouette to the clinking song that was probably a famous ballet piece like swan lake or the nutcracker. As a child, this jewelry box would provide the inspiration for my dreams of dance, that later, completely change my life.
As I started traveling more after high school and college I somehow almost forgot completely about the jewelry box as it got shuffled away in storage.
Upon my last trip home, (nearly 15 years later) as getting older entails, I was going through memories and belongings I had long forgotten about. I found the jewelry box and inside was a ring that was my grandmothers given to her by her fanatical (and possibly genius) ex boyfriend who I only remember would get drunk and paint beautiful murals all over my grandmothers walls and the next day my grandmother would make him paint all the walls back to white.

This promise ring was nearly identical to the one lost so long ago.

I know it’s not the same ring but I’m so thrilled it has somehow found it’s way back into my life, in some facet.
It reminds me of dreams, hopes and inspiration to be yourself. Now that I’m in my thirties, the ring fits my finger perfectly and I wear it on my days off work to run errands and occasionally, to ballet class.
If you are reading this and ever find yourself on a dusty gravel country road in the Midwest and stumble across a beautiful gold & diamond ring buried in the earth, know that it’s full of hopes and dreams and make sure you give it to someone special, and it will change their life, like it did mine so long ago.

The ring was tragically lost in this accident and I was so sad for years and years and years about it. It was the only thing I had worth any money in that small town I grew up in and maybe I had hoped it would be worth enough to get me out of there and into the big wide world. But lo and behold the ring had already taught me I was enough and didn’t need it all. But the dreamer side (and obsessive side) of me knew although it was gone forever, I secretly longed for karma to bring the ring back into my life somehow, because I’ve seen Titanic one too many times.

My grandmother passed away my senior year in high school and she had a sage, velvet lined jewelry box with a ballerina in it who is reflected in an oval mirror. I would wind the key in the back and the ballerina would twirl in a haunting like pirouette to the clinking song that was probably a famous ballet piece like swan lake or the nutcracker. As a child, this jewelry box would provide the inspiration for my dreams of dance, that later, completely change my life.

As I started traveling more after high school and college I somehow almost forgot completely about the jewelry box as it got shuffled away in storage.

Upon my last trip home, (nearly 15 years later) as getting older entails, I was going through memories and belongings I had long forgotten about. I found the jewelry box and inside was a ring that was my grandmothers given to her by her fanatical (and possibly genius) ex boyfriend who I only remember would get drunk and paint beautiful murals all over my grandmothers walls and the next day my grandmother would make him paint all the walls back to white.

This promise ring was nearly identical to the one lost so long ago.

I know it’s not the same ring but I’m so thrilled it has somehow found it’s way back into my life, in some facet.

It reminds me of dreams, hopes and inspiration to be yourself. Now that I’m in my thirties, the ring fits my finger perfectly and I wear it on my days off work to run errands and occasionally, to ballet class.

If you are reading this and ever find yourself on a dusty gravel country road in the Midwest and stumble across a beautiful gold & diamond ring buried in the earth, know that it’s full of hopes and dreams and make sure you give it to someone special, and it will change their life, like it did mine so long ago.