Last week I spent 20 minutes out of my ‘oh crap, I’m late for ….’ getting ready time scrambling on the floor beside my bed looking for a ring. Not just any ring, of course; my wedding ring.
I’m one of those people who takes her rings off at the drop off a hat…well, not quite, I do require some duty about to be performed which will involve getting my hands mucky, slippery or otherwise cause said rings to either be damaged or lost. Seems to me the symbolic reason for the wedding ring requires a certain judicious consideration of what is the greater danger to the physical ring vs the appearance of my commitment to a relationship.
This continual removal/retrieval means I usually have 2 or 3 places where I put them. I have learned over the years that keys and rings need to go in a set place; a spontaneous placing of either set of valuables elsewhere is synonymous with ‘lost’.
Like a set of work keys currently held by the house poltergeist. Keys that cannot be replaced except by a locksmith and only if he is directed to do so by an officer of our company who cannot be revealed to anyone including the current manager of the building which the key opens. Seriously. The lock company wouldn’t even give a hint as to who that person may be; the irony here is the manager may not be the person with authority to order a replacement key but she can order the current lock drilled out and
be issued with a full set of keys to the replacement. Heck, she could have the door, wired glass, alarm system and damn lock yarded out to be replaced with a set of those old time saloon swinging doors if she felt like it. No more keys needed. And they say government bureaucracy operates with a mindless adherence to arcane rules.
But back to me on my knees in the bedroom. (There’s a picture the children will need several years of therapy to remove…)
Now, you may be thinking I had not followed my rule here and tossed the rings aside in the abandonment of the moment. Wrong on 2 counts. First, after 25+ years of sleeping together there are few surprises left, to say the least, and very infrequent moments of
spontaneous abandon–inside and outside of the sanctum sanctsnorum. This does not mean to say we are boring or bored. At this stage of life, surprise does not necessarily generate excitement so much as suspicion.
Secondly, my wee bedside table is one of the designated ring reliquaries. There is even a clear space sufficient to hold my treasures between the CPAP machine, the clock radio and higgeldy-piggeldy pile of books.
I had placed my rings exactly in the space carved out for them. What happened was I scooped them up and then immediately dropped them onto the floor. The floor where resides the laundry all sorted in a moment of inspiration now waiting for a future moment of inspiration; the dog’s crate; another pile of books; an assortment of under the bed shoes, books, treasures brought home by my daughters when they were still in grade school and, um, books.
I found 2 of the rings quite quickly but, of course, the primary one, the most laden with emotional significance had rolled just a little further. After 5 minutes the self doubt set in. Did I pick up 2 or 3 or was it still on the bedside table? No. Was it in the pocket of my pants? I’d also worn them yesterday, so, no I had not completely lost my mind and expected it to appear there by magic or house pixie. No, not in the pants. Maybe on the window sill over the kitchen sink (where a small shot glass serves the purpose)? Nope. How about where I put the keys on the mantle? Now that is just plain silly, I won’t check there until I’ve run the circuit on the ring spots at least 3 more times.
Granny, where I'd like to be in a few years
So what is all this about, besides the obvious evidence of my deteriorating mental state? Well, smart ass, my mental state has been at this address for several years. The only changes have been a slight increase in distractibility and an increasing sense of self often expressed as cranky old lady outbursts. I’m looking forward to more of the outbursts and greater enjoyment of the distractions as time goes by.
What struck me, as I dug through the laundry for the 3rd time, was what is so important about this ring? It’s actual value is one thing. And what I would have to endure in terms of recriminations from my long suffering husband are something else. Both serious motivations, yes, but I’ve lost many things over the years, as the above noted L.S.H. can attest and money is just money, after all. No doubt I could find a replacement ring at approximately the same price and in a newer (therefore better) style.
It is the life it represents. The man, the house, the families we have brought together, the children we have brought into the world, the pets we have held as they left. The treasures of routine, annual rituals of celebration, the fights, the disappointments, the putting aside of things we never would have given up for anyone else and only ever mention now and then.
If only I put half the effort into the life it represents as I did in searching for the symbol, maybe it would be easier. You know. It isn’t an easy life; not like the tv families who have at most a very Brady crisis of helping a teenage daughter survive her first crush on a boy she met during the holiday in Honolulu while the youngest son gets up to some mischief involving frogs and a wedding reception at the
golf course. Nope, there are bills to pay, realities to face and another patch of grey hairs to go with the arthritic joints, rising blood sugars and plummeting metabolism.
And then I found it. There beside the bedside table, behind the dog crate. No time left to contemplate the big issues, just get going with life and deal with every problem that throws itself under each carefully planned step. All I could do was get out the door and off to work with mere moments to spare before I was well and truly late.
Life is like a ride at Disneyland