diamonds

This morning, on the equinox, I woke from a dream about my old engagement ring. Which was actually my wedding ring—Josh proposed ringlessly, so he finally bought a diamond ring on our drive up the coast in search of a seaside elopement spot, and the next day he put it on my finger when we made our vows before the justice of the peace. I stood on the beach rocks in my silver heels, reminding myself in a panic, divorce is not the worst thing in the world. Too codependent to tell him I didn’t want to marry him, too afraid of being unloved and abandoned to let him go.

Our marriage lasted two years. 

Diamonds are forever though, right? Mine was a lab-made blue diamond, flanked with two white diamonds, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I left it in the US for safekeeping when I embarked two years later on the African adventure from which I never returned, and I missed its thrilling sparkle on my finger. Years after I’d divorced and settled in Kenya and adopted my daughter, I put it on my right hand during a US visit and kept it there, simply to enjoy its beauty.

Then one day, behind on my bills, I sold it, to a slimy jewelry dealer on the opposite end of Nairobi who paid me a fraction of its worth. Seven hundred bucks he gave me for that treasure. I used it to catch up on rent. 

Last night in my dream, though, a friend had stored the ring for me in her jewelry box, and when I went to retrieve it, it was gone—she had absentmindedly loaned it to someone else. I panicked. I made a scene. The police got involved. Then at some point, as I was crawling toward wakefulness, came that magical moment of dream meeting reality when I remembered: wait a second, I sold that ring years ago to pay my rent, there’s nothing to make such a fuss about--I’m the one who let it go. 

“There’s nothing to make such a fuss about”—words that have been used far too often, by myself as much as others, to indict my emotions (which are admittedly dysregulated at times). Yet in the dream, I said them to myself as comfort. I had not been betrayed by my friend; in real life, it was my choice to part with that precious thing. 

That was a beautiful equinox dream-message for me. As a person who skews heavily toward victim thinking, I feel empowered when I acknowledge my choices and take ownership of them. It’s not the circumstances themselves that matter so much as the way I feel inside them, and feeling empowered rather than victimized is the foundation for moving forward, finding new solutions, and being at peace. 
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As the equinox tips me from summer into fall, I’m ready to tap into some deeper empowerment, let go of regret, and harvest the positive outcomes of my choices. Ready to honor my agency. ​