Remember just over a year ago, when I lost my wedding ring? Well, it seems kind of crazy to say, but yesterday my ring was found and returned to me.

The last time I saw my ring, it had fallen off my hand while I was pulling out last year’s tomato plants in the garden. The next day, when I noticed my ring was gone, it occurred to me that perhaps I had lost it in the garden. Specifically, I wondered about the compost pile, since I had been throwing in said tomato plants. So I scoured the entire garden several times (as I did every place I had been) but I never found it.

Yesterday, however, the “keeper of the compost” decided to uproot some of the plants growing in the cinder blocks around the compost bin. He pulled up a plant and uncovered a ring. He quickly defeated an inhuman monster in a riddle contest deep underground, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Just kidding about that last part, what he actually did was have the garden administrators send out a mass email asking if anybody had lost a wedding ring. Sara got to it first and responded immediately with a couple of pointed questions, including the inscription (only visible when heated in a fire of course). It turned out to be my ring (wouldn’t it have been weird if someone else’s wedding ring had been found in the garden?), and since the ring bearer works nearby, Sara had it in her hands a few hours later.

I know there are better stories out there. I mean, its not like I found it in the belly of a fish I caught 20 years later or something. But I had given up all hope of finding my ring so long ago, that this just really came out of the blue and felt like a miracle. I think even the guy who found the ring was surprised at how quickly he was able to find and return it to its rightful owner.

I’m not even sure what I’m going to do with it. Should I re-size it and wear it again, or should I keep it in a safe place and continue to wear my replacement ring? Or should I simply walk into Mordor and throw it in the Crack of Doom?

Decisions, decisions.

So, as you are probably already aware if you had any contact with me in the past week (virtual or otherwise) that I lost my wedding ring.

The funny thing about your wedding ring, is that you never really notice it. And yet, you always *constantly* notice it. I wasn’t really aware of this until I lost my ring, but I unconsciously touch it or rub it a million times a day, like a touch-stone. Now that it’s gone, when I unconsciously touch my finger I have a millisecond of panic, where my mind just registers, “Something is wrong!” before I have time to think, “Oh yeah, my ring is gone.”

So it is hard to say where exactly I lost my ring. I know for sure that I had it the night before. Normally I probably wouldn’t have known that, but I was working in the garden pulling out tomato plants, and my ring flew off. I noticed right away, and I picked it up and thought, “Huh, that’s weird.” The next time I noticed my ring (or should I said didn’t notice my ring) was at work the next day.

Of course, since the last time I had it, I was in the garden, at home, at daycare, at school, and at work (and of course I’ve checked all of those places as thoroughly as I possibly can). It seems to me that it was most likely lost at work, since that is where I noticed I was missing it. Even though I don’t generally notice my ring, I have a feeling that I would have noticed it pretty quickly after I lost it. However, I wanted no stone left unturned, up to and including jumping in the dumpster at home and re-opening a poopy diaper I had changed. Those would have been totally worth it if I had found the ring, but I didn’t, so they really sucked.

As for how I lost it, I’m not really sure. You take your ring off for one second, and some hobbit is trying to throw it into Mount Doom. Just kidding, I never, ever take my ring off. (But I still don’t trust hobbits. Tricksy they are, tricksy.) It has always been a tiny bit on the big side, but if it has ever fallen off before, I noticed it immediately. I have been losing some weight for a while now, so maybe that’s why it slipped off, or maybe it was that in conjunction with the colder weather. As my co-worker pointed out: “You’re supposed to get fatter the longer you’re married. Your wife shouldn’t be feeding you healthy food.” In other words, this is all. Sara’s. Fault.

I’ve been pretty bummed about the whole thing. First off, taking the sentimentality out of it, it’s definitely the most expensive thing I’ve ever misplaced. Second off, I really hate losing anything. It just drives me crazy until I find it. I’ve been walking around staring at the ground everywhere I go, even if the ring couldn’t possibly be there (like if I go somewhere I didn’t go that day). I just can’t stop thinking about it, and thinking of more places to check, even if the places get more and more absurd.

But finally, you can’t take the sentimentality out of it. That’s my wedding ring! That’s the symbol of my marriage. I could get another ring, but it will never be THE ring. It’s not just any old ring. This has come up before, in the discussion of “upgrading” your ring. Some people get a new, better ring on some particular anniversary, such as adding diamonds, etc. The theory, I guess, is that you’re older and you have more money, so you can get a better ring now that you could have back when you got engaged. (Either that, or maybe it’s like, “Well, I guess it’s going to last after all, so I guess you ARE worth spending money on. Either way.) I have always adamantly been against this. I don’t care what kind of ring I would have bought now…it’s the one that I did buy that’s special. That’s the one that reminds me of where we were at at that point in our lives, even if we were young (perhaps BECAUSE we were young).

I don’t know, I’m just depressed about losing it. Now that it has been a week, I’m not holding out much hope of finding it.

My precioussssssss.