A Lesson About My Halo

So, as you may or may not know, I am lucky enough to be married to my high school sweetheart. I have known and loved this man for the majority of my life (although there are admittedly some days when i don't LIKE him, haha!). We were engaged in November 2013 and married in April 2015.

When we got engaged, Erik gave me the most beautiful, unique ring I've ever seen. Everywhere I go, people compliment me on it. Fellow jewlers marvel at it's unique design and the interesting mix of rose gold in with the more traditional white gold.

The most unique feature of this ring, though, is a floating halo ring of diamonds that encircles the center stone and moves ever so slightly. The ring is always in motion, almost as if it has a life and energy of its own. I LOVE this feature of my very special, one of a kind ring.

So, immedately after we were married in April 2015, I became pregnant with my daughter Evelyn (when I say immediately, I mean like pregnant in May). Fingers swelled, weight was gained, and long story short I haven't been able to wear this gorgeous ring as much as I'd like to.

Well, in 2019 I am making efforts to enjoy the beautiful things in life, including all of the beautiful things that I am fortunate enough to have.

Including my beautiful ring.

So, with confidence and excitement, I took that ring up to a local jeweler (who does all of their work in-house) to be sized up. One week later, I went to the jeweler to pick up my ring. The sizing was perfect.

As the lovely woman at the counter unwrapped my ring, she happily exclaimed "...and look! He was able to fix the loose part with a small tack!".

I damned near died right there.

I think the blood drained from my face: I looked at her and before she could even finish her sentence I said "it's SUPPOSED to move: it was made that way!".

Silence.

Staring.

"Oh."

So, here I am, the ring is absolutely as gorgeous as it ever was, but that little unique detail that really only I knew about was changed. What I saw as a beautiful unique feature, the jeweler assumed was a flaw. It was different than what he knew to be beautiful and he "fixed it" for me.

Was it ill-intentioned? Absolutely not. This jeweler felt like he was doing me a favor by fixing my ring. He was going above and beyond to repair this broken ring so that I could enjoy it and wear it with confidence. It never once occurred to him that it was unique by design: that the assumed flaw was in fact a very intentionally thought out detail.

How does this story end? I sat there while he fixed it. He had to to back and undo his repair, removing the extra bit of gold that he had lovingly welded in to secure the moving piece in the ring. He had to try to undo what he had done, and I waited. When he brought it back out an hour later, it was once again free to dance and move like it had been intended to.

Except...

It is not the same now. I can see where the repair was. The metal is ever so slightly uneven, and there is an almost imperceptible scratch on the back. None of these things would be noticed by the naked eye, but *I* know it's there. I know what my ring was like and what its like now that it has been "fixed" and "unfixed". It may look the same, but in reality it has been changed forever.

So why I am I telling you this?

As I sat there waiting for the jeweler to bring my ring back to its intended design, I started to think about how this was all such an incredible metaphor for how we treat people and the effect our perceptions have on what we do.

About how we may try to "fix" something in someone else that we perceive as broken, but that really those imperfections are by design.

About how beauty and perfection are in the eye of the beholder.

About how, no matter how much you apologize or recant, you can never really completely repair the damage you do when you impose your visions of perfection onto someone else without their permission.

So here I am. My ring fits and I am wearing it with pride and love. The floating halo floats again, albeit with a slight scratch and an ever so imperceptible lopsidedness (that may or may not be there, I'm still reeling from the whole thing and it *could* be in my head).

The lesson:

unless you are God, don't ever adjust someone else's halo without being invited to. 

It's perfect the way it is.