Quarter for your thoughts

The day I took the quarter ring off was the hardest day of my life.

The love and devotion it was originally forged in was so badly tarnished that wearing it had become a cruel reminder of what once was.

I COULD no longer wear it without inconceivable pain, so I took it off and placed it in my jewelry box, but not without some chest wrenching sobs that left me even more broken than the day before.

At first, the indent that the prolonged wearing of the ring left on my finger was prominent, and every glance was like re-opening the wound of betrayal.

The ring restricted and strangled my finger for so long that it had come to match my heart, and week after week, I patiently waited for the impression to fade.

Several weeks later and to my bewilderment, it was STILL there, like an invisible band around my left ring finger.

I tried to will it away, along with the memory of his hands and the sound of her voice as she proudly laughed and said “He wants to be friends with benefits.”

It’s still there today, the impression from the ring, mocking me for my false beliefs and misplaced trust. I’ve come to believe that it will never go away, as if the universe won’t let me forget this man who both shaped and broke my beautiful heart.

I wear other rings over it so I don’t have to see it all the time and I WAS afraid it would never go away.

Now, I am afraid that it WILL go away, and take with it the last tangible reminder of the impression he left on my soul.

I fear nobody will ever love me again and I want so bad to feel comfort and to be held. This has been a constant, familiar need for well over a year. I felt there was something wrong in our relationship all those months because there WAS something wrong. I felt abandoned and forsaken and rejected because I WAS abandoned, forsaken and rejected.

And for WAY more than a New York minute, I thought I was gonna die.

Funny thing though, I woke up every one of those mornings thereafter, amazed that I hadn’t. And eventually, the feeling I was gonna die faded. The sound of her voice and her hurtful words have somewhat faded.

But the impression of that ring hasn’t.

It’s as stubborn as the man that created it. It may not ever go away, and even if I cover it with another ring, it will be there when I unmask it,

In my dreams, my lover makes me a new ring, to cover up the old impression with the promise of a new one.

We all know dreams don’t come true.

But that doesn’t stop us from having them.

Dreams are not what you SEE in sleep…

Real dreams are what won’t LET you sleep.