The RING

I was having lunch with Sarah one afternoon and I noticed she wasn't wearing her wedding ring. I asked her why she didn't have it on, and she simply shrugged and said "Shoot, I forgot". Out of reflex, I looked to make sure I had mine on. It made me smile as I got into deep thoughts the entire lunch date with Sarah.

During the first year of my marriage, I had a 'love-hate' relationship with my ring. I would take it off every time I had petty arguments with James. I would take it off when things weren't going my way, and I take it all out on James - or the ring. There was even one time when I gave it back to James, but of course he wouldn't take it back. When he left for England to sort things out regarding my visa, I had taken it off a few times, but I always put them (my wedding and engagement ring) in a safe place and I made sure I only put them in one place every single time. I take them off because I thought that way, I could forget for a moment that I got myself into a heap of shite by getting married so soon. I hated my wedding ring because it reminded me of, what I thought then, was stupidity. Despite wearing them on my finger, I felt them around my neck instead, I felt suffocated and caged. And it comforted me that even though I can't pull myself out of my marriage, at least I can pull off the thing that symbolizes it the best so easily.

But as months passed, I started to realise and see how much effort James had been putting into making our marriage work. He has done much more than what any one would expect from a 19 year old bloke. He worked so bloody hard and still found time to text me the second he opened his eyes in the morning, call me before he goes to work, text me on his dinner breaks, and then ring me when he got home from his 12-hour shift. He didn't do this for a day, a week or a month, but he's been doing it for the past 13 months since he left for England! He doesn't tell me when he gets out of his way to do something extra for me, but I know. And that is why I appreciate all of his efforts, and I realised that someone who doesn't have enough love in his heart for one person, can't and won't do what he has been doing for me. I know that if he could give me the world and every thing in it, he gladly would. All along, I've been blaming him for things he did not have control over. I threw all my frustrations at him, and he took every single one without complaint. Sometimes I wish the British Embassy could see how hard he's been working and maybe they will see that we deserve to be together - where we want to be together. To them it might be just a piece of paper, or a little ink for a stamp, but for James and I, it is our life. I suppose the saying "Anything worth having is worth working hard for" is true, but I can't wait for the day that I can help James more than I can right now.

Nowadays, apart from the daily text messages and phone calls, I also have my ring to keep me going. When I feel lonely, I always look at it and it seems to sparkle more when I am most down. To me, our wedding ring is just like our marriage. On one side, it is plain, on the other it sparkles like the stars in heaven on a clear night sky. The plain side is how other people see us and what we have, and the "sparkly" side is what we know we really have. The plain side is our down times, and the sparkling side is our best time. It's good to know that on our down times, we both realise and believe that when it has passed, we always have the sparkly, shiny and beautiful side to look forward to. All we needed was a bit of effort to turn things from the plain side to reveal the sparkly side. And of course, we will always have each other. Nobody can EVER put DISTANCE in between our LOVE.