Ever since I decided to stop wearing my wedding rings, I’ve been wondering what to do with them. It seems like an easy enough problem, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do.

Part of this has to do with paperwork. After Tim gave me my engagement ring, it took him less than 24 hours to ask me if I wanted to know how much he spent on it.

“NO! Why would I want to know that?”

“You know, just in case you’re curious.”

I was not curious. I think this is a dangerous thing to know about such an important item – mainly because I was a brat. What if it was “too low” and I started some kind of spoiled brat pout session? What if it was too much and I freaked out about he couldn’t afford it? I already felt a lot of pressure since I have a propensity to lose things, and did not need a dollar value attached to this responsibility.

Of course after he died, I managed to find the paperwork in a matter of days without even looking for it.

Now that I don’t wear the ring every day religiously, I’m panicking that something will happen to it. When I traveled a lot last month, I felt certain that my apartment might get broken into. Therefore, I decided the best bet was to hide my valuable jewelry… mainly these rings. I stashed them in the cup holder of my office (mental note: find new hiding place now) and that’s where they’ve sat for the past several weeks.

A cup holder doesn’t seem like a very ceremonious place for these items that I have such sentimental attachment to, so it’s time to find them a new purpose in life.

Googling “widow ring” gave me some interesting results. First, a previously undiscovered shopping opportunity. While I may be doing some minor retail therapy, I can promise that I will not be purchasing any of these gems.

Sure, a widow’s gotta do what a widow’s gotta do to get through this shit storm… but is anyone else disturbed by these? I find the concept of someone marketing a black, broken heart ring to a depressed and shocked individual upsetting. If I were to design a Lauren “Widow ring” it would look like one of these:

Aside from buying something gaudy and terrible, the internet also gave me some lovely options for what to do with my rings. These options include:

• Tie them to a kite and let them fly… make someone else’s day!
• Throw it in the lake or ocean.
• Tie them to a helium balloon, lay down and “let go” while they float away.

I think with my luck lately, the kite and/or helium balloon would get stuck in a small aircraft propeller and be the cause of a local tragedy. Ironically, I wrote a short story in college where the main character throws a wedding ring in the ocean. I guess this is what I get for being a little over the top in the short fiction of my past life.

After ruminating some, I’m going to not go with the ocean plan and instead hit up a local jeweler. My hope is to get the small diamonds from both of my bands refashioned into a new, thin criss cross band of some sort. The engagement stone is harder for me, but for now I plan to get it made into a simple pendant.

At first the pressure of deciding the “final” resting place of my diamond was a lot, but I’ve decided that if I change my mind later I can always get it redone. After all, if this summer has taught me anything it’s that nothing is permanent.

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