Shiny! Pretty!

I’m just gonna come out and say it: I love jewelry.

I do. Really, really. Shiny or colorful or gaudy or just plain bizarre? Sign me up. More than once, I have come home from the flea market with some treasure purchased from a card table set up outside of a Winnebago and had this conversation:

Dad: That’s … interesting. What are you going to do with it?

Me: Umm … I’m gonna wear it?

Dad: Oh. Well, that’s nice.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that because I never get rid of anything, I have secret stashes of jewelry around my house. That way, I’m totally prepared once those huge earrings from 1983 come back. All that stuff they sell at Forever 21? I probably have the banged-up original. And yeah, it’s way cooler than the knock-off.

Lest you consider busting into my house, the total value of my shiny! pretty! hoard is probably about $12. But I love it.

It’s not often that I am insanely jealous over another woman’s baubles, but I’ve definitely had my moments. Usually, it’s some over-the-top vintage piece. But there was a time when I had severe engagement ring envy.

I was jealous of the shiny! pretty!, but mostly, I was jealous of what it stood for. I was lonely. I felt like I was destined to be alone forever. I wondered if my friends with the shiny rings truly appreciated the value of having a best friend who was their partner in crime. I wondered if they occasionally looked down at their left hands and smiled, seeing both the physical beauty of the jewelry and the galactic, holy-shit amazingness of having 2 humans promise to work together to figure everything out forever.

When My Guy and I talked about getting engaged, he was surprised at my enthusiasm for ring shopping. He didn’t think I’d want to go. Shaaa - right! I totally wanted to go!

Except it was totally stressful and overwhelming. None of the rings were quite right.

Until … we saw The Ohmigod Ring. Because I tried it on and all I could say was, “Ohmigod.”

My sweet husband gave me that ring 2 years ago today.

I look at it all the time. Sometimes I wear my wedding band and engagement ring on different hands, so that I can appreciate them separately. Sometimes I just look at them because ohmigod, they are so pretty. But mostly?

Mostly, I look at my rings and think about My Guy, and the look on his face when he gave them to me. And I think about how lucky I am to have a true partner and friend, and how My Guy was so totally worth the wait.

Now, granted, sometimes I look at them and think, “Damn! I need to clean these rings - I look like a hobo!”

But, keep in mind that My Guy always refers to his wedding ring as “My Burden” - typically while raising his left hand to the heavens and pantomiming a classy “Why, God, whyyyyyy?” moment. Either that, or he’s playing with the ring - err, excuse me, I mean burden - spinning it around, tossing it in the air, and generally making me believe his prediction that at some point, he will lose the ring - err, burden - and I can’t be upset.

So, it’s cool. Marriage is all about balance. Plus, I have a bunch of lovely plastic flea market rings he could wear instead.