Day 116 - our wedding bands, originally uploaded by clarity25.

We don't have traditional wedding bands or a traditional love story.

In fact, If I put too much worth on "signs" and "bad omens"... our marriage would have been doomed from the first day.

Eric lost his wedding band on the very first day of our honeymoon. He was at the beach, it slipped off while he was swimming and it was lost in the ocean. He sat there searching the sea floor while waves crashed over him. He was distraught and utterly crushed.

I told him it doesn't matter. Our relationship doesn't revolve around the wedding band.

I bought him a new one. This one matched mine with identical sanskrit writing.

My wedding ring and band were stolen the next year when I was required to take them off in order to visit someone in prison. (A traumatic memory I wish I could forget...) When I returned it was gone from the locker. I was upset because that was the ring he proposed to me with.

But he bought me two more silver bands. Each one has a unique story and experience behind it. Each time he presented it to me on one knee

But the truth is...it's just symbol.

It could be a plastic ring from a crackerjack box for all we care.

Chances are something will happen to our current rings and we'll have to replace them as well but it wont change what we have together. I think our society puts too much focus on the wedding rings (the worth, the carat, the diamond, the cut) and less on what they actually represent. In my humble opinion...

Day 116 of 365 days