@NickFun,
Nick, I remember you telling about this before, and it hit me then too. I'll throw you a hug even though time has passed.
We all see this through our own prisms, appropriately enough. But all of us have empathy.
The ring. It stayed in a velvet box for a long time, about eight years from the actual leaving. Then one day, in a new city far away, I was looking around among my rings (I like rings), stared at it, tried it on. I like it, we picked it out together for its modern simplicity, hard to describe, sort of a square with a line in the middle, superior jeweler but not expensive. He never wore rings and didn't want one (no, not a signal, then anyway). In a few months he decided he really liked mine and had one made to match for a guy, in silver. They were/are cool rings, probably wedding bands but not necessarily. So, I wear it now once in a blue moon, on my right hand, just like I wear my mother's wedding ring, a really small almost wire of platinum, or her engagement ring from the thirties, or my grandmother's thick gold one from the 1890's. It's not about anything, really. Don't want him back. Another ring among the ones that matter or have mattered, with a little rue and a little pleasure in the wearing. I also wear a ring a fellow brought me from Norway once in a while. Not a token, but not freighted.
Takes time to lose the bulk of the freight.
Cats help time move.
