My divorce is final! What next?
Figure out what to do with my wedding ring. I’ve been carrying it around in my purse, in an otherwise-useless pocket. One of my friends tried to taunt me about it, saying, “It’s not magical or anything, and it’s pretty, you can still wear it.”
I invited him to have a glass of Shut The Fuck Up.
There’s nothing magical about the sensation of weight on my left hand and the feeling of belonging that’s attached to that. Besides, I’m not really into jewelry, unless you count the weird little frog pendant that I dig out every so often. And yes, it is a pretty little ring. But I still feel it not there and love it. It makes me happy to not wear it. Why the fuck any woman would want to wear jewelry that was a gift from her ex is beyond me.
So today, while out for groceries, I passed a jewelry shop, so I went in and asked if there was a way I could trade it in. Sure can! $80 cash, $165 trade-in. Wow! What can I get for $165??
As it turns out, not a whole hell of a lot. I browsed around a bit, then tried to cram a few earrings into my poor little almost-closed piercings (those were so important when I was 16…), but I really wasn’t enjoying myself. I don’t know how much of that was due to the whole adventure of getting rid of my wedding ring, and how much was due to the unusually large amount of coffee I’d consumed that morning, and how much I was just not in the mood for shopping… But I am sure that a great deal of it was on account of the finality of my divorce and the final symbol of that. Grandma says there is a place in Vegas where people throw their wedding rings– a fountain or something– but fuck if I’m gonna throw something with that much cash value into a pool of water for someone else to find and trade in.
Shit, it’s 9 PM already. This day has gone by so fast. I worked on a friend’s resume all morning and made it totally awesome, dropped gma off at AA, (had a nice cry in my car while she was in there, and a bar of chocolate!), had lunch with her and my dad, went to Costco for a failed attempt to replace gma’s lost hearing aid (what??), then went home and had to manage a total temper meltdown from gma. I have a fair amount of compassion and I can stay pretty calm as long as I’ve had enough sleep. She’s got a lot of chronic pain, anxiety about death, and has generally required a high amount of maintenance all her life… but then she did ask for her anxiety meds, which I feel is a good sign. That and she had an appointment with a counselor from hospice 30 minutes later, coincidentally. Just enough time to stop swearing up a storm (very out of character for her) and wipe her face.
Anyways. Tomorrow is day off. Will visit library and music store for sheet music.
Not really Alice 