A Week Full of Crap

This week started with the tax debacle on Monday and continued to roll right over me until it was gone.  I won't detail all of it.  There's just too much.  Today alone is worth three or four blogs.  The crowning event happened this afternoon after school.  

I took a necklace of mine that had broken to a jeweler for repair.  While I was there, I had them look at my rose of sharon ring.  It has been catching everything lately.  When the lady looked at it, she started pointing out problems and finished by telling me that I needed to put the ring in a drawer and not wear it except for "special."  It's too fragile and too old, apparently, to withstand repair.  

I'm heartbroken.  I blogged about this ring earlier, so don't want to repeat, but it's so much more than a circle of metal to me.  My grandmother gave me money, my parents gave me money, and I used part of the paycheck from the first job I ever had to pay for the rest.  It represents my family as a whole.  I have worn it every single day (barring international travel) since I got it.  It makes me happy each and every single time I look down at it.  Now I have to put it away, and it's like something I loved has died.

My finger itches from not having the ring on.  I keep feeling it with my thumb, probing for the band that should be there.  But there's nothing.  Each time I realize why, it makes me sad all over again. 

I am sure that there are other rings in the world, but none of them will be *mine*.  It is also true that it is just a little thing, not earthshattering at all, but nevertheless, to me it matters.  It's just one more thing of mine that I love but cannot do anything to heal or better.  It's just one more precious piece of me that has gone bad and can't be reclaimed.  

I am rapidly losing the ability to hide everything under a neat curtain of positive thinking and Noh smiles. The lost and the broken are destroying me.