I love a well-written essay like a person might like comfort food. It's my favorite genre and when something hits the mark for me, its the perfect reading experience. The unadorned honesty of this one was the thing that stood out more brightly. A person comes to a late understanding of their desires and that is a source of as much paint to those that they loved as it is to them. In a loving relationship that transitions to marriage as a sign of ripeness and completion, there can be such upheaval.
A woman in love and dreaming of a home and family with the object of her affection is not the same as a married woman. Something changes quite fundamentally at that point. Some may feel like they have made a one-way decision and there is an immense gravity associated with such a thing, Any signs of frivolity at any level can be viewed as as injury or betrayal. If those add up over time, things can fall apart. The author fortunately was able to see her own reality before she committed to the act of marriage.
The ring now sits in the cupboard beneath my bathroom sink. It’s bent and broken, half-crushed metal and leftover diamonds in a little purple jewelry bag. I do not know what to do with it. Every time I look at it, I try to imagine the movements of a hand that made it bend the way it did. Was it a hand? Or was it crushed beneath a shoe? Perhaps it was thrown with such force that it warped. Whatever the velocity or method, it is a remnant of human anger, a broken thing.
It is an object, lacking meaning to me. The truth is, I cannot part with it.
Comments