I kind of miss my class ring. Also, I don’t.
I remember the day the company came for their annual shill of another unnecessary token of memorabilia from high school. Ah yes indeed, time to rake in some dollars from unsuspecting 17 year olds in the name of tradition. Do people even keep their class rings for more than a decade? I don’t know…but I was excited nonetheless. This was the signal that we were about to enter our senior year. We had two more semesters to savor every last second of our high school lives. More purchases would arrive. Next it would be yearbooks on the order card. Caps and gowns. Degrees in faux-leather bound packets. Promises to call, to email, to be friends forever and to never forget our best days.* All of it dripped with golden nostalgia, and I ate it up—the class ring especially.
I was so meticulous about design, and color. It had to be worth remembering. My little, bubbling, potential-laden self was so proud that this was one of the first big things I was able to pay for by myself. Obviously I wanted to get it right. Who knows, maybe someday I’d be showing it to my grandchildren, allowing them to bring it in to win “oldest” or “most unique” at their schools.
Maybe.
I had it for a year. I wore it almost every day, save for the afternoons I was loading tater tots at my part time job and jewelry wasn’t allowed. The ring was never out of my sight. I would sit with my friends at lunch and compare designs, noting stone color and engravings. I considered wearing it on a chain instead to keep from losing it, then decided against it. It scraped against every desk I had as I penciled in notecards and lined paper. My hand clunked it against lockers as I walked down the hallway. One full school year of admiring my first big-kid purchase with pride. Then, it vanished.
It’s disappointing to be sure. I really did love that thing. But the ring’s disappearance is actually a reminder of love I had forgotten about until now.
Not many people know this about me, but when I was 18, my house was robbed while I was in it.
I suspect I was protected twice. That weekend my parents traveled to a different state so that my dad could rescue yet another vehicle in need of small repair that he could then turn into the family camper. I stayed with a friend and came home a night early so that I could go to work the next day. It was the first time I was allowed to be home by myself overnight, and I happened to fall asleep on the couch. Around 2 am, my little dog Simon woke me with a start—growling with growing intensity at the door to the garage, eyes pinpointed toward a sound only he could hear. I froze, holding him to my chest and putting my hand to his snout to quiet him. If someone was down there, I didn’t want them to know someone was up here, awake. Finally, as the minutes ticked by at a glacial pace, I came to the conclusion it was only the cat and we both fell back asleep.
I woke up and went to work the next morning without a second thought. My parents came back that afternoon after having decided that the camper wasn’t worth it, and we all slept peacefully that night. I had no idea what I just dodged until the next morning, when I was gently shaken awake at 6 am.
“Do you know why the garage door is open?”
Eyes bleary and the gears of my brain still rusty from sleep, I trudged downstairs to see the door pried a quarter of the way open. I glanced in the basement to see several missing places where our things should be—the computer, the PlayStation, my iPod, my brother’s commemorative coin box, others that escape me at the moment. My mom’s car had been rifled through. A piece of cloth I didn’t recognize lay on the lid to the deep freezer. I nervously looked toward the file cabinet and the toolbox. Slowly the pieces came together and I glanced at my dad. He was clearly trying to piece together a rational explanation for this. I turned and gently suggested that we should call the police.
I’ve felt fear before, but this was something worse. This had a grip that was stronger. Colder.
Remembering that morning means I don’t remember that night, and I’m grateful it wasn’t worse. I know others who weren’t so lucky and that’s why I only tell this tale with Nuance at the table. My story isn’t everyone’s, and that’s why not every takeaway is for everyone across the board. But what I can’t shake at all is the fact that a small miracle occurred that night—not a single one of us woke up. No one stirred, no one got up to use the bathroom, no one went downstairs for a midnight snack. Not my brother, who bunked with our terrier that yapped at the slightest provocation. Not my parents, in the bedroom across the hall. Not the cat, who had direct access to the basement and a curious nature. And not me—sleeping closest to the living room, where they had slipped into the main floor, took a thorough look around for what they could carry, and clearly spied my purse on the coffee table. The woven one with bright colors, my favorite at the time. It was the one containing my wallet, my work ID…and my class ring.
I miss my class ring. But also, I don’t.
A kind stranger actually found it, years later. They tried to send it to me, but it got lost in the mail. I like to think it was on purpose. A reminder. I didn’t go downstairs that night. None of us did.
I’m struggling a lot with trust at the moment. My mind is constantly documenting the near misses and Google searches and the fear that maybe this time my luck has run out. I wrestle with truth and myth, terrified of second shoes suspended in midair. I’m under no illusions and He’s under no obligation to tell me what He’s up to. It’s an old battle, depressing and cyclical with a sharp memory.
I know anxiety is a liar. Sometimes it shouts that I am not immune to this world, which is true.
Other days, when the terror is loud, I tug on the edge of robes and ramparts. Waiting a second, I wade through all the words I want to say. Tight-lipped and chin-tipped, I settle on a shaky sentence:
“Hey. You didn’t let me go downstairs. Ok?”
He knows I’m reminding me more than Him.
I could swear He comes closer anyway.
“Yea. Ok.”
Footnotes:
*Or worst, depending on who you ask.
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