Heart the Day: Loss and regret part 1 (or, the story of a ring {and us}, part IV)

I think we all know where this is going...

I wore my pretty promise ring for 4 years, never taking it off.

Except one time when I was acting in a friend's directing class scene and I asked my friend to keep in it his pocket and had to chase him down later when I remembered to get it back. And then one other time in late night rehearsal for another student-directed scene, I didn't take it off, but the tiny diamond fell out.

I looked at my ring, and immediately started crying like a cartoon. More panicking, really, but kinda cry-like. Fortunately, I was surrounded by really great friends in this project. One eagle-scout type immediately started looking, and then the same friend who held my ring for me before walked across the stage, kicked it by accident, and eagle-scout eyed it immediately. The whole emotional roller coaster lasted about five minutes.

Marc had, meanwhile, applied to law school. We spent some time senior year visiting schools and we decided there was no way we were going to do three more years apart. I knew I had to be in NYC, but the closest we got with schools was Cornell. They had a free bus that would go to their medical school in the city but... no. More busses? More longing and missing and miscommunication that comes with long-ish distance. I wanted to scream.

So, we graduated college, spent a summer in State College where I temped and he finished his Masters thesis, packed our car and drove across the county to LA where Marc would attend UCLA(w).

road trip 1:

{personal pics: off we go!; Thomas Lincoln's cabin; Gateway to the West, St. Louis; Arthur Bryant's BBQ Kansas City, MO; Red Rocks; The Onion, Boulder; Rocky Mountains; Children swimming with watermelons; 3 pics of Zion National Park; new home sweet tiny studio home}

In my memory, I loooved it there. We had our favorite bagel place, we'd go to the beach on sundays before the marine-layer burned off (it was chilly but not yet crowded). I worked three jobs, learned a lot, acted in some fun projects, but we had to get out of there. Homesick, traffic, and our shared studio apartment were adding up.

Through these adventures, I had gained some post graduation nesty weight. I was also working at a bakery where I washed my hands a LOT. I attributed the itchy hives developing under my ring to one or both of these factors. I would take my ring off and stick it in my pocket at the bakery when it got annoying. Finally, when Marc moved back east ahead of me to prepare for his transfer to Columbia, and I was left to pack up what remained of our apartment, the ring went missing in the mess.

My dad arrived on site, we pulled apart some piles of packed stuff, but we didn't have any luck. This is completely typical of me, so my dad kept my mood light and we had to let the little beauty go- down a gutter somewhere? In the ocean in Malibu from a recent last hurrah day of SoCal? Most likely, it was down the drain of the laundry machine where I had left my ring in my pocket.

I asked our landlord to mail it to me if it turned up anywhere- assuming that the cleaning guys would just pocket it if they found it since I left a huge mess in the studio- and my dad and I drove off into the night, toward the desert, away from any possibility of finding my promise ring again.

road trip 2: