The Curse Of The Oversized-Diamond Engagement Ring [And What It Taught Me About Love]: The Most Stuck Up Thing I've Ever Said In My Life
This is a story about one of the most stuck up things I ever said to my former fiancé about my oversized diamond engagement ring over breakfast at a diner in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and what this foreboding tale taught me about love.
The Curse Of The Oversized-Diamond Engagement Ring [And What It Taught Me About Love]: The Most Stuck Up Thing I've Ever Said In My Life
We'd just finished our Whitetail deer trophy buck hunting season in Kansas. He guided hunts; I cooked for all the hunters. We were heading out West to Jackson Hole to see if we could pull off making Jackson Hole our home base rather than the low country.
On our drive, we listened to Cobi's "Don't You Cry For Me" and "Wish I knew you when I was young" by the Revivalists and other folk-meets-alternative rock songs that populated our "Out West" playlist. Driving through the Colorado aspens, I did my best to take in and embrace the landscapes, doing my best to reason that I'd made the right decision in uprooting my life to follow my partner again.
That morning at the diner in Jackson Hole
We’d been in Jackson Hole a few days, we went to a diner for breakfast. I was in the thick of feeling sick with a head cold and a fever, it was 30 degrees outside. My engagement ring cut into the base of my fingers beneath my blue gloves. I ripped the gloves off.
"Ugh, my fingers hurt so much. I don't like my engagement ring. It's just... the diamond's too big. It's beautiful- of course, it's beautiful, but it's just too large. I can't wear gloves with this ring, the setting sits so high it cuts into my fingers. I mean, God, I sound like the most entitled, ungrateful bitch, but I have to be honest -- this ring is just too much for me. It just looks like one of those stereotypical rings you're "supposed" to get, and I just... I love rings that are unique and eccentric and tells a story, like an expression of our journey together. I know how much of your hard-earned money you put into giving me something incredible, it's just...it's just not me. I'm not the kind of girl who puts a band below a giant rock, and that's it. I wish maybe we'd talked about it, or I showed you some of my Pinterest boards of ring styles I like. You could have saved SO much money, and it would be something that's more my style. I don't know how else to say it; this ring just isn't me."
The Curse Of The Oversized Diamond Engagement Ring
Now, if that wasn't the most entitled asshole thing I'd ever said in my life, but I needed to tell him. I'd kept that in for months and months, and I had this secret anxiety crushing me from this shiny ass rock on my finger.
We'd been engaged for about six months at that point. The first week he proposed, I started having dreams where I was playing at the beach, I'd bring my hand out of the water, and I'd look down, and the diamond would be gone. My nights filled with variations of this: the diamond falling, breaking, crumbling.
He replied to my statement like any reasonable freakin' human would, responding with something to the tune of, "Seriously, do you even hear yourself? Sorry, I wanted to pick out the biggest and best for you."
I was suggesting maybe we could find a custom ring maker to add some interesting embellishments to the band design, something simple to add more interest than just a giant diamond on a gold line. He cringed at the idea of spending EVEN MORE on that considerable money pit sitting on my left ring finger. I began looking on Etsy to find $50 "interesting" gold-plated bands and seeking out bottom of the barrel ring-crafters who would dare take on a project for $400-$500, instead of the typical fare of $1200-$3500 for such custom ring work.
I Settled For A Gold-Plated Band(aid) Solution
The terrifying thing was the diamond started getting loose in its four-pronged setting within a few weeks of when he proposed. Eight to nine months into our engagement (post- this-diamond's-too-big-for-me diner confession), in my ignorance, I attempted to take pliers to tighten the four prongs, and I popped the diamond out of the setting completely (I was at home, thank God.)
I had such a mental block towards asking to spend any more money on this engagement ring, so for the remaining of the time we were engaged, I stopped wearing the ring altogether, and settled for wearing my $50 Etsy gold-plated band(-aid solution), so I wouldn't have to deal with the anxiety of bringing up the ring again.
When I think back to how outrageous I sounded at the diner
…My anxiety that manifested in the forms of repetitive dreams and nightmares around this ring was that I was in a relationship with a partner who didn't find value in the full spectrum of who I was as a person.
There was a certain range of appropriate emotions and behaviors deemed acceptable or appropriate in the constructs of the Palmetto Boy culture that governed our relationship dynamics. My highs and lows of feeling and creative process? Well, it just a little much. Too much.
The Artist/Creative’s Journey Of Creative Tension
Ask any artist or creator; it's probable they exhibit an array of highs and lows energetically and emotionally in their creative process. It's that creative tension that gives way to those big sun flares of fantastic work and beauty. Chaos, upset, sadness, anger, passion - these "uncontrollable," "emotional," "unpredictable," "high-risk" volatile behaviors are the very building blocks to the expressions of love my partner appreciated in me, but the precursors weren't welcome.
You should live a simple golden flat-lined life.
This picture was taken by my dear friend Shannon Wooten when I’d shifted to my gold-band(aid) wearing solution era.
Like that ring, a more desirable setting would be a golden flat-line. Be moderate in your behaviors, lukewarm in your temperament, modest in your expressions. Live a simple, quiet, out-of-sight non-controversial life. Stay small, but keep those big ol' beams of sunshine coming. Live a simple golden flat-lined life.
That beautiful ring and the relationship it represented was one of the greatest gifts I was given in my mid-twenties.
That relationship taught me more about who I am and what I stand for more than any other experience in my life to date.
It was also the hardest, scariest thing I'd ever done-- leaving that relationship, and my best friend.
That relationship and that engagement ring taught me that you can meet an incredible, wonderful person, and they might not be YOUR person.
They might not be your person because they’re meant to find someone better to complement and add strength to their life; and guess what? SAME FOR YOU! When you chose to step into the unknown and walk away from “good enough” — consider the possibility that through saying “no” and closing one door, you’re actually saying “yes” to the BEST for your life (because trust me when I tell you, it is out there, for BOTH of you.)
I learned that no one has to be "wrong" for a relationship to not be right. It is a cakewalk to leave someone who's cheated, or "done you wrong", compared to the heartbreak and loss you feel when you end a relationship with someone you love.
When you leave a relationship because you realize that the two of you simply aren't right for one another.
A friend of mine showed me one of the most incredible quotes during that breakup:
“Someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. They can love you in a way you have never been loved and still not join you on the bridge. And whatever their reasons you must leave. Because you never ever have to inspire anyone to meet you on the bridge. You never ever have to convince someone to do the work to be ready. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen, out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready.”
When you realize that one of you will always be suffering on some fundamental level in order for the other person to thrive.
When you realize that somewhere along the way, you overlooked a big-picture life-alignment dynamic because you were swept away by their beautiful smile, and the idea of a person, rather than seeing the real human in front of you.
And now you're faced with a choice; staring down the barrel of years of happy moments, adventures, inside jokes, and sweet memories, about to be blown into oblivion, or stay with something that's "good enough" but you know will never be "great" for the both of you.
I learned more about who I am, what I stand for, what I'm about from that relationship more than any other experience in my life up until that point.
I learned how to honor what I wanted. In all my highs, my lows, my anger, my biggest fears of being alone, of "blowing it," in stepping away into the unknown, I learned how to bet on myself.
The beauty from that relationship never really left me. When that relationship ended, I didn't "lose" my mid-twenties or "lose" four years of my life like I used to tell myself.
One thing I also learned, I didn't blow all those memories into oblivion.
I still can't help but smile when I hear, "I wish I knew you when I was young" by Revivalists, as I think about riding in his truck, laughing as he'd use way too many finger gestures while singing along with the chorus on that road trip.
I still smile when I think about how much he loved playing with our dogs on the floor. I still laugh when I think of his Country Mac skills.
When I hear, "Don't you cry for me" by Cobi, my heart gets full as I think about two young lovers chasing our shared adventures and acting on our dreams as we journeyed out west through Wyoming, Montana, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Idaho.
Our past relationships, our former lovers; they're the embellishments that frame the beautiful gem that is THIS chapter in your life.
The spectacular beauty of who you are NOW shines so bright against the contrast of all the crooks and bad boys (or girls) you fell for, against the crevices of hidden, secret, unrequited love, against the former flames that dazzle softly in the background, this intricate weaving of love framing the context of the gorgeous shining diamond of a moment you're in now.